The Wolf & The Chain
by perilous-circumstance
Summary: 10 years after the war, Hermione works as a Retrieval Specialist. Her career sends her across the world, seeking out rare artifacts. Death Eater sympathizers are searching for an item that could change the entire world. Hermione is off on a race to find the artifact & save humankind - despite the annoyance of having to work with her greatest enemy Draco Malfoy. COMPLETE
1. Prologue

I am so excited to start posting this multi-chapter fic! I've always wanted to do an epic Adventure story, full of lore and mythology and all the nerdy stuff. So here goes nothing!

This story is very loosely based on the film 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.' In some places I use famous dialogue from the movie but otherwise it has been completely re-written to suit the fandom. But you might recognize some things!

The next chapter, the true Chapter One after this prologue, will be uploaded tomorrow, and then after that updates will come regularly!

As always, a million thanks to CourtingInsanity for beta amazingness!

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**Prologue**

**April 20, 2008, The Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt. **

The air in the canyon shimmered with heat. To either side of the small group, high walls of sand and rock glowed gold in the punishing sunlight. Outcroppings cast long shadows that contrasted against the glare of the sun on the sand. Hermione let the saliva pool in her mouth and then spat, trying to wash the grit from her tongue. Every part of her was coated in a light dusting of sand - she could feel it collected on her eyelashes and in the inner crease of her elbows. Sweat stuck her linen shirt to the planes of her back and soaked the hatband of her felt fedora. She reached up and tugged the wide brim down further over her eyes and squinted at the men walking in front of her.

Dressed in loose, flowing linen robes, the three dark-skinned men led the way through the winding canyon. Hermione had paid them half their fee in Luxor's ancient wizarding district, while drinking shay bil na'na', the local mint tea in a shady marketplace cafe. The Ministry gave her a deep budget to hire local guides and she always took advantage - it would be stupid of her not to. Her job with the Magical Artifacts Retrieval & Research Division had taught her to be cautious and methodical, and when to acquiesce to local knowledge.

One of the guides, a thin man with shifting eyes, pointed towards the cliff face ahead of the group. A bend in the canyon trail revealed a long series of carefully excavated doorways stretching into the distance. The man pointed again and said something in Arabic. Hermione cursed herself, not for the first time, for neglecting her studies of that language. The local dialect was incomprehensible to her. She thought about casting a language charm, but decided against it. The other two men spoke perfect, accented English. It wouldn't be an issue.

The man called Zahur, clearly the leader of the three, turned back towards her and grinned.

"Aanisah, the tomb entrance is ahead!"

Hermione waved in acknowledgement, squinting into the sun and peering at the carefully cut entrance into the sandstone. Discarded archeological equipment lay on the ground, surrounding the doorway, and she could see bootprints in the sand. She walked up alongside Zahur where he stood in the shade of a rock outcropping and stopped, pushing the brim of her hat back on her forehead and wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

"And you are sure the Muggle archeology teams haven't disturbed this tomb?"

Zahur grinned, his sun-wizened face wrinkling with mirth. "No, aanisah, the Muggles avoid this entrance but they do not understand why. Perhaps they think there is a rock collapse? Or faulty supports? The local diggers are a superstitious lot, they might even suspect that there is magic here."

Hermione nodded to herself, biting her lower lip in concentration. "It's most likely a light coating of ancient Muggle Repelling Charms - we see that a lot on ancient magical sites. They last indefinitely, believe it or not. Something about those ancient strains of magic has sticking power."

The other man who spoke English, a reedy fellow named Amged, drew up beside Zahur and regarded Hermione with a level stare.

"That one is getting nervous," he said, waving a thin arm towards the third guide Hermione had hired. The man who spoke only Arabic stood several yards away, staring at the entrance to the tomb with a look of naked fear.

"This place holds much superstition for Muggle and wizard alike. He is probably thinking of some story told to him by his old nursemaid." Zahur barked a command in Arabic and the other man straightened quickly and waited as the other three walked past, towards the entrance. He fell in behind and Hermione could smell the stink of his fear.

They passed under the carved entrance and into a cool, dark chamber. Ahead of them a black maw of a tunnel opened in the sandstone wall. Amged drew his wand and muttered an incantation. Light bloomed around him and spread tendrils out towards the walls. Soon the chamber was illuminated in a soft glow. Hermione sucked in a breath, her eyes widening at what the light revealed.

Every inch of the wall was covered in decoration. Hermione was fascinated, rotating in place and trying to take in all of the murals at once. She began to slowly move down the corridor, her eyes flickering from symbol to symbol. Zahur and Amged trailed behind her, their eyes wide. The third guide lingered at the edge of the light, falling further behind as they moved forward. Suddenly he turned, dropped his pack in the dust and ran back towards the entrance, his footfalls echoing within the sandstone chamber.

"Let him go." Amged sneered. "He has proven to be useless anyway. We will split his fee between us, Zahur."

"I do not carry supplies," Zahur snapped, his eyes shifting haughtily to the pack on the ground.

"Leave them. Once we've got it, we'll be able to make it back to the Portkey by dusk." Hermione waved absentmindedly towards the supplies and turned away from the men.

As the group moved deeper into the chamber, the light followed them. It rolled across the walls and more decorations were revealed, crowding the space with ancient scenes. Vertical stripes of painted hieroglyphics rose from floor to ceiling, broken only by colorful murals depicting dark figures in profile. Splashes of ochre and indigo paint showed expanses of water and sand. White winged birds flew in azure skies. Figures marched across the sandstone, their arms bent at right angles and their hands gripping wands.

Hermione's boot hit something and she stopped, crouching low and wiping away layers of dust from a leather pouch. Her fingers passed lightly over the embossed insignia of the British Ministry of Magic.

"So this is where McCullough ended up."

"A friend of yours?" Amged's question was soft in the eerie glow of the light from his wand.

"Colleague. He was very, very good." Hermione rose, brushing the dust from the knees of her khaki trousers.

"No one has ever come out of there alive! Why should we place our faith in you?" Zahur's voice shook with what Hermione could recognize as fear.

The deeper they moved down the corridor, the more oppressive the atmosphere became. There was old magic within these sandstone walls, they could all feel it. She moved closer to one wall, her hand rising as if to trace a symbol of an eye, the rims painted in rust colored paint, the iris a deep blue. Her hand dropped to her side and she reached into her waist pack, drawing out a small beaded handbag. The jet beads caught the light and sparked as she pulled open the drawstring and stuck her hand in. She rummaged about for a minute, her eye's never leaving the hieroglyphics, and then her hand withdrew from the bag, clutching a rolled piece of parchment. As she unrolled it, she didn't notice the glance exchanged by her two guides.

"No one ever had what we had." Hermione held the parchment up to the wall, comparing the drawn hieroglyphics to the symbols on the wall. She paced along the length, her eyes darting back and forth as the guides trailed after her. She stopped suddenly, her tongue clicking against the roof of her mouth in a satisfactory sound. She smoothed the parchment against the sandstone. "Assuming that the symbols here mean…"

Suddenly Zahur's wand was in his hand and pointed at the back of Hermione's head. His boot scuffed sharply against the sandstone and she glanced back at him. On seeing the wand point trained at her face, she lowered the parchment and turned. As she moved her hand reached up behind her into her shirt and slid out brandishing her own wand. In one fluid movement, her wand raised towards Zahur.

"_Expelliarmus_!"

Zahur's wand flew from his fingers and Hermione's hand whipped up to catch it as it launched past her shoulder. She pointed Zahur's wand at Amged as the hand holding her own wand coiled back and flicked once again towards Zahur.

"_Stupefy_!"

Zahur dropped like a deadweight, his body hitting the floor and kicking up a cloud of dust that glittered in the wandlight. Suddenly the chamber was silent except for Amged's ragged breathing. Hermione regarded him calmly.

"I knew nothing! He was crazy! Please!"

Hermione waited one breath and then nodded, tossing Amged's wand back to him. The man scrambled to catch it, his eyes wide with fear. Hermione holstered her wand and cast a glance towards Zahur's supine body.

"Let's go."

Xx

Hermione and Amged emerged from a series of pitch dark corridors into a larger sandstone chamber. At the entrance, a shaft of sunlight pierced the darkness from a fissure in the ceiling. Amged made to move into the chamber but Hermione's arm shot out across his chest, stopping him from going further.

"What —?"

Hermione cast around them and found a loose stone in the dust. She scooped it up and tossed it through the shaft of light. As the stone sailed through the sunlight, immense iron spikes sprang from the side walls of the chamber with an ear-splitting burst of metal grinding on metal. The impaled corpse of a man hung from one of the center spikes.

_McCullough._

"We can go no further." Amged was trembling violently beside her, his wand held loosely at his side. The spikes retracted, the sound grating along Hermione's spine. They watched as each one disappeared into dark recesses within the walls, leaving an empty room once more.

"Now Amged, we don't want to be discouraged by every little thing!" Hermione let out a laugh, only slightly tinged with hysteria as she stepped sideways into the chamber. She moved along the wall, her back pressed against it as she slipped past the holes the spikes had retracted into. She skirted past the shaft of sunlight and held her breath until she was clear of it. Amged whimpered softly as he watched her, but he slid his own body against the wall as she motioned for him to follow.

Once past the spikes, they descended a staircase cut into the sandstone. The sound of their boots on the dusty stone stairs echoed in the silence. At the bottom, they faced a narrow corridor some fifty yards long. At the end was a doorway that glowed with light from whatever lay beyond.

"Let us hurry! There is nothing to fear here." Amged took a step forward but Hermione grabbed his shoulder to slow his steps.

"That's what scares me."

They moved forward slowly, Hermione's eyes darting across the hall. After several feet of nothing happening, Amged's pace quickened and he drew ahead several steps. Suddenly he pitched forward, his foot sinking below the floor. Hermione grabbed the back of his shirt, hauling him back to stand beside her. He doubled over, his breath coming in ragged gasps, as Hermione pointed her wand before her and whispered _Lumos._ The floor of the corridor was covered in a dense carpet of cobwebs. She cast a quick _Incendio_ and watched as the cobwebs burned, leaving behind a dark pit as wide as the corridor and too long to jump across. Amged picked up a stone from the floor beside his boot and dropped it into the blackness. They waited several breaths but no sound came. Hermione let her gaze sweep the corridor and noticed large support beams crossing the ceiling overhead. She trained her wand upwards.

"_Flagrum Distendo!"_

A glowing whip of light shot from the tip of her wand and arched through the air, wrapping several times around the support beam. Hermione gave it a hard tug and leaned into the tension. It appeared to hold her weight. She gripped her wand and took several steps back. Amged made a garbled sound as she launched herself forward, swinging over the pit and landing neatly on the other side. She swung her wand back to Amged and watched, an amused look on her face, as the man clumsily followed her lead.

As Amged caught his breath and Hermione ended the spell, there was a faint splash from deep within the pit. Hermione looked at Amged, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. Her guide shuddered, his face cracking with fear, as Hermione moved past him and through the doorway.

They entered a large, cavernous room with golden sandstone walls and a black and white tiled floor. The tiles were set in haphazard design, no discernible pattern apparent. In the center of the room was a carved sandstone pedestal, ringed with hieroglyphics and painted friezes. On the top of the altar was a thick papyrus folio, bound together with what appeared to be a net of fine gold wire. Hermione's breath caught in her throat.

_The Book of Thoth!_

She tore her eyes away from her objective and let her gaze sweep across the tiled floor. She crouched on the sandstone threshold and reached out, tapping a white tile with the butt of her wand. She waited several moments, and when nothing happened, she shifted and rapped her wand against a black tile. There was a whizzing noise and Hermione moved swiftly to the side, turning to stare at the thin dart embedded in the sandstone wall behind her. Amged pointed across from them, to a wall riddled with small openings. Hermione guessed that the darts came from there.

She straightened, dusting off her trousers. "Stay here."

"If you insist, aanisah!"

Hermione gripped her wand and began to make her way across the room, stepping carefully on the white tiles. It wasn't terribly difficult, her training made the fluid movements less strenuous as she danced her way to the dais. As she approached, Hermione pulled her beaded bag from her waist pack. She ascended the cut staircase, and as she climbed she stuck her arm inside her bag. The folio sat in the center of the altar, the gold wire glinting in the dim light. She narrowed her eyes, taking in the bare sandstone surface and the light coating of undisturbed dust. As she regarded the folio, taking in it's thickness and dimensions, she removed her arm from the bag and withdrew a stack of plain paper.

She spent a moment comparing the stack in her hand to the folio, withdrawing several sheets and replacing one or two until she felt she had a good match. Placing her beaded bag back into her pack, she shifted her weight until she felt well balanced. The stack of papers in her left hand trembled as she hefted it several times, testing the weight. Her right hand clenched and unclenched in the air above the folio. Hermione willed herself to still, taking a deep breath and letting her shoulder muscles loosen and relax. After another deep breath, she pushed her weight into her stance and, with one fluid movement, switched the stack of papers for the folio.

Her breath, which she didn't even realize she had been holding, hissed out of her lungs. She stood stiff and poised in the silence before a sharp series of clicks echoed somewhere above her, drawing her eyes to the ceiling. Another series of clicks began.

_Oh shit_.

The sounds shook her to action, and she leapt from the dias, hitting the last step with both boots planted firmly. She began the hurried dance across the white tiles back to the chamber entrance, the folio clutched to her chest. The clicks had given way to a series of scraping sounds, each progressively louder and grating. The sandstone walls were starting to shake and dust floated down from the ceiling, coating her hair and arms. Just as she reached the threshold where Amged waited, a rock shook loose from one of the walls and hit the floor, sending a cloud of darts into the chamber. Hermione grabbed Amged's shirt as she rushed past, hauling him through the doorway.

They scrambled up the stairs and Hermione dug her wand from it's holster, casting _Flagrum Distendo_ as they ran. She tossed her wand to Amged and watched as he swung across the pit. Once on the other side he turned, her wand still gripped in his hand.

"No time to argue, throw me the book and I will throw you the wand!"

Hermione scoffed, her eyebrows rising into her hair. _Was he mad?_

Amged growled, his eyes narrowing. His passivity melted away, revealing a look of pure venom. He pointed his wand towards Hermione. "_Accio folio!"_

Hermione had a split second to react - she clutched the folio tightly to her chest and launched her weight forward, hoping that the momentum of her leap and the spell would propel her across the chasm. She soared over the dark pit and hit the edge, the impact knocking the folio from her grip as she scrabbled to keep herself from sliding into the darkness. The folio skidded across the sandstone floor. Amged lunged for it and as he turned away from her, Hermione cast a wandless _Accio_ and thrust her arm into the air to catch her wand as it shot towards her. She swung her body onto the floor and rolled, coming up with her wand trained on Amged's fleeing back.

_That little bastard._

She watched as he disappeared into the next chamber. Shaking the dust from her hair and clothes, she followed him at a run. As she crossed the threshold, a bloodcurdling scream rent the dusty air. It ended as abruptly as it began. Hermione moved cautiously into the chamber as the spikes retracted and slid her way to where Amged's body hung from an iron spike. Ignoring the rapidly growing pool of blood on the floor, she plucked the folio from his death-grip and moved past, sidling past the shaft of light and moving into the darkened corridors beyond. From here it was a quick run down a long, dark passage, if she remembered correctly.

Suddenly she was aware of the scraping and grinding noises again - they had been a drone in the background as she had fought to catch up to Amged. But now they shook the walls and sent loose rubble flying from the walls and ledges.

As Hermione ran into the passage, a deep rumbling tremor sent her scrambling for her footing. As she straightened, she cast a glance behind her up the inclined passage and felt her heart drop. Above her, a giant boulder shuddered into view, rolling down the corridor.

_Oh this was just absolutely perfect._

It was picking up speed and Hermione began to run, her legs reaching for long, loping strides. She clutched the folio to her chest as she ran, her breath coming in hot, ragged bursts and her lungs aching. The light of the entrance glowed ahead of her and she ran towards it, feeling the rotations of the boulder and the tremors of the sandstone as it ground against the floor and walls.

She was yards from the entrance, her legs churning beneath her and her mouth slack as she gasped for air. She could feel the boulder nipping at her heels, a massive presence threatening from behind. Five more strides and she would be there, four, three, two - she dove forward, ducking into a roll and skidding out into the canyon just as the boulder slammed into the doorway, sealing the tomb forever.

Xx

Hermione lay flat on the sand, her breath heaving through her lungs. After the darkness of the tomb, the sunlight was blinding and she squeezed her eyes shut. Bursts of light bloomed behind her eyelids and she shuddered, sucking in air. The folio was still pressed against her chest and she consciously loosened her grip so as not to cause any more untoward damage to the priceless papyrus.

Suddenly, a shadow fell over her. She opened her eyes, squinting into the sun. Three figures loomed above her, their bodies blocking the sunlight. The two on the left and right were local men with stocky, muscular builds. They stood menacingly, their wands pointed at Hermione. The man in the center was tall and lanky, dressed in immaculately pressed and clean khakis and a white linen shirt. His skin was pale and the hair peeking out from underneath his hat was almost platinum. Hermione hit her head against the sand with a groan. The man chuckled, the movement causing the sun to reflect off his aviator sunglasses.

"Granger. You choose the wrong friends, and this time it will cost you." Draco Malfoy reached his hand out expectantly. The sleeve of his white linen shirt was cuffed to halfway up his forearm and the bottom inch of his faded Dark Mark stood out against his pale skin.

Hermione glared up at him, taking several moments to orientate herself. She let her mind track down her body, cataloguing what she had on her person. Folio, waist pack, wand holster, wand. The bastard waited, his arm still extended with his palm up. Hermione sighed deeply and shook herself, handing him the folio. Malfoy grinned wolfishly down at her, his eyes locked on hers as he took it from her, tucking it under his other arm. He reached his hand out again and Hermione grunted, handing him her wand. He smirked.

"Again, we see that there is nothing you possess which I cannot take away. And you thought I'd given up."

Hermione snorted, her eyes flicking to the men flanking Malfoy. They were watching the blonde man expectantly, their eyes bright as they took in the papyrus portfolio. He had most likely told them it was invaluable and promised them untold riches in exchange for their muscle. _Poor, misguided creatures._ "Too bad they don't know you like I do, Malfoy."

"Yes, too bad. You could warn them… if only you spoke Arabic."

She sneered at him and he laughed, saying something to the men beside him in the local dialect. They grinned and turned with Malfoy, away from Hermione. She smirked - he always had underestimated her.

She kicked her leg out in a fluid movement, hooking Malfoy's ankle and jerking him down. She was up in a crouch before the other men could move, rolling against Malfoy as he dropped. She palmed her wand, tugging it from his grip and coming to her feet, spell already halfway past her lips. As the Apparition took hold, she heard Malfoy's shout and their eyes meet. He threw her a mocking grin, holding the folio before him. Hermione growled, spun and was gone.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**April 23, 2008, The Ministry of Magic, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Magical Artifacts Retrieval & Research Division.**

Hermione shifted her weight in her leather wingback chair and regarded the man sitting opposite her desk with fond amusement. He perched on the edge of his seat, his gray hair disheveled and his spectacles repaired with a twist of Muggle tape. One hand was absentmindedly tapping the arm of his chair while the other twitched agitatedly in his lap. Hermione felt a sudden urge to lean across her desk and place her hand over his protectively. He had that effect on her, the dear.

Morris Winstone, Director of the Magical Artifacts Retrieval & Research Division of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, peered across the desk with a harried expression. Hermione had briefed him on the mission failure upon her return, but she had a feeling his disappointment ran deep. The Book of Thoth would have been an invaluable addition to the Ministry's archives and an endless source of research and study. Hermione felt another crushing sense of regret squeeze at her heart before she stamped it down. It wouldn't do to dwell on her failure.

"Do you think the Book will show up on the black market?"

Hermione coughed a laugh and sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "Who can say, Morris? Just because Malfoy has it doesn't mean he'll keep it."

"True, true...one can only hope."

Hermione nodded and turned her attention back to the notes she had been reading when her boss had knocked on her office door. She had a lecture in an hour and even though she had been back in England for three days, she was still feeling out of sorts. It always took her at least a week to fall back into her routine once she returned from a mission.

As a department expert on high-risk artifacts and European Mythology, Hermione found herself lecturing her colleagues and other members of the Ministry several times a week when she was in the country. She had been surprised at how much she enjoyed this part of her position within MARRD - despite her love of learning, she had never had any real desire to teach. But she found the majority of her students bright and interested in what she had to teach them, and had been pleasantly surprised to discover that she had a real knack for the job. It was a calm and regulated respite from the other parts of her career, which could become… hectic. The Research balanced out the Retrieval.

Morris cleared his throat and Hermione looked up, surprised he was still there.

"Was there something else, Morris?

"Yes, yes, as a matter of fact there is. There are two Aurors waiting to speak with you in the lecture hall. Seems a matter of some urgency, seeing as they sent senior staff."

Hermione grinned, already having an inkling at who was waiting for her down the hall. She closed the folder of notes in front of her and stuck her quill in the inkwell before rising from her chair. She took a moment to smooth down her skirt before rounding the desk to join Morris as he slipped through the door.

Her patent leather heels clipped smartly on the tile floor of the corridor as she and Morris strode towards the lecture hall where Hermione taught. One of the interns waved at them from the clutch of desks in the communal office space and Hermione raised her hand, smiling.

"Any idea what the Aurors want with me, Morris?"

"They're apparently looking for Ravenwood."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat and she frowned, her brows wrinkling together in confusion. Her mouth opened to say something just as they were walking through the door into the lecture hall.

"There's our little thundercloud."

A tall man with ruddy skin and a shock of red hair leaned lazily against the half-wall that seperated the amphitheater of seats from Hermione's lectern and desk. He grinned at her, his arms crossed against his well-muscled chest. Behind him, sitting in one of the student seats, was a dark haired man wearing glasses over his bright green eyes. He was also smiling at Hermione, as he rose from his chair and began to move around from behind the wall.

Hermione laughed, a peal of joy, and threw herself at the red-haired man. He lifted her, squeezing his arms around her torso and doing a half-spin so that her legs flew out behind her. She kept laughing, burying her face in his shoulder.

"Ronald Weasley, put me down! When did you get back from Japan?"

Ron set her down gently, but kept his hold on her. He grinned down at her, pecking her cheek with a chaste kiss. "Two days ago. Would have come to see you if I hadn't been immediately put to work by my slave-driver of a boss."

Hermione giggled and peered over his shoulder at the dark haired man waiting his turn to greet her.

"Hello, Harry."

Harry Potter, youngest Head Auror in living memory, smiled back at her as he clapped his hand on Ron's other shoulder.

"Hey, Hermione. Ron here has been working a case for me since he got back. And I thought that since you had just returned from Egypt, it was just as well. The reunion could wait, though I wish it was under happier circumstances."

His smile slipped a bit and Hermione stilled. Ron squeezed her once and released her, stepping back to lean against the half-wall. Behind her she heard Morris move into the room. Hermione glanced at him as he nodded his greeting to Harry and Ron and took a seat in the first row of the amphitheater.

Hermione turned her full attention to the two Aurors as she hoisted herself on to her desk, crossing her legs demurely. "Alright, out with it. What brings the two of you to MARRD on such urgent business?"

Ron threw a quick glance at Harry, who nodded, and then turned back to Hermione.

"'Mione, have you heard from Lars Ravenwood lately?"

"You know I haven't Ron - it's been years since I've spoke with Lars, we had that... disagreement over the allegorical nature of the Veil of Isis and he cut all contact."

She frowned. It had been five years since she and her mentor Lars Ravenwood, infamous collector and researcher of ancient magical artifacts, had stopped speaking. Hermione was surprised to find that it still hurt.

Ron nodded, glancing again at Harry. "I remember. We were just hoping you might have heard something from him, or perhaps about him, more recently?"

Hermione frowned, the wheels in her mind turning quickly. Something was wrong - she could see Ron's anxiety in the tightness of his shoulders and the way he kept flicking his eyes towards Harry. For his part, Harry stood against the half-wall, his arms crossed against his chest as he regarded Hermione with a level stare. Anyone else would have been intimidated by the intensity of his gaze, but Hermione knew better. She could see the lines of worry around his eyes.

"Tell me."

Ron grinned at her fondly and moved towards Morris, folding his tall frame into a chair. "You better tell her Harry, she'll only torture it out of you otherwise."

Harry huffed a laugh, amused by her forthrightness and Ron's gentle teasing. "There has been a renewed surge of Death Eater activity in the last few months. At first it was small things - an aerial Dark Mark here, a bit of graffiti there. But then there were some Muggle injuries, several occurrences of property damage. It felt like they are escalating and we weren't sure why. And then yesterday we received intelligence from several trusted sources that Death Eaters or Death Eater sympathizers are seeking the whereabouts of Lars Ravenwood."

Hermione felt her mouth go dry. The low-level undercurrent of Dark Magic had been there since the war and she wasn't some idealist who thought it could ever be eradicated. But to hear that there was more than just rumblings, that they were working towards some goal...it made the blood freeze in her veins.

"What on earth do they want Lars for?"

"That's what we were hoping you could help us with Hermione. Our intelligence was spotty, but one thing was clear: they want to talk to him about something called 'Loeding' and 'Dromi.' Though I have a feeling, being Death Eaters, they want to do more than just talk."

Hermione had sat forward, her hands gripping the edge of her desk at the mention of the strange words. Her eyes flicked to Morris, who was twisting his hands together agitatedly in his lap. He stared at her, his eyes wide. Ron's eyes moved back and forth between the two and he grinned softly.

"You know something about this." His words were a statement, full of warmth and pride, as he looked at Hermione. She blushed slightly, always a little awkward under his proud gaze. They had ended up being ill-suited romantically in that long-ago try at a relationship just after the war, but Ron would always be her first love and biggest supporter.

Hermione hopped down from her desk and kicked off her heels. She began to pace, her bare feet padding along the plush wool carpet. She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Yes, I know what they are. They are exactly the sort of thing our department deals with, the type of ancient magical artifact that the Ministry would love to get their hands on for further research and inclusion into the Archives. In their own right they are powerful objects, but it's more what they could possibly lead to that worries me."

Harry watched her as she paced, his dark eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He gestured at Hermione to continue.

"Many of the artifacts we research and search for in Scandinavia are Dwarven made - the Dwarves' skill with foundry metalworking is unparalleled in antiquity and even still, a Dwarven made metal item fetches a high price. In ancient times they were the masters of metalworking for powerful wizards and witches, and if you believe the stories, Gods and Goddesses sought their craft skills when creating magical objects. When the Norse deities needed to bind Fenrir the Wolf, the monstrous son of Loki, to keep him from ravaging the worlds, they asked the Dwarves of Nidavellir for chains. Loeding and Dromi were the First Chains, the bindings that Fenrir broke free from. Though they didn't hold him, they were powerful magical objects in their own right. They could not hold an immortal, but I'm sure their powers would be more than enough to subdue a mortal being. They would be quite the prize."

Ron and Harry exchanged a glance - they could hear that Hermione wasn't saying something. Ron opened his mouth to ask a question but Hermione raised a hand. She stopped her pacing and turned to face her friends, her gaze intense. "But I don't think the Death Eaters would be after Loeding and Dromi - or rather, that isn't the end game. You see, when Fenrir the Wolf could not be contained by the First Chains, the Dwarves created a chain unlike any that had been seen in any realm. They crafted it from the sound of a cat's footsteps, the beard of a woman, the roots of mountains, the breath of a fish, and the spittle of a bird - in other words, from things that did not exist and which Fenrir could not struggle against. This chain is called Gleipnir, and apparently it still holds Fenrir imprisoned somewhere in Vanaheimr, the ancient wizarding community of Scandinavia. It is one of the most powerful magical objects to ever be created in our world."

"You think the Death Eater's want this Gleipnir - but how can they get it when it's currently being used to bind an immortal?" Harry's voice was strained and Hermione felt a pang of guilt that she had rekindled the old anxiety in her friend. She smiled apologetically at Harry as she pushed her curls away from her face and gave a heavy sigh. She looked at Morris, where he still sat silently next to the two Aurors. Her boss looked green at the gills, his eyes clouded with worry.

"There are rumors that the dwarves made an extra length of Gleipnir when they forged the chain to hold Fenrir the Wolf at the Gods' command." Morris pushed his spectacles up his nose and regarded the two younger men. "Why they made an extra length isn't known - whether in case their first forging was faulty or because they had an intended purpose for it - but rumors of its existence has swirled within the oral and written traditions of European mythology for centuries."

Hermione smiled at him encouragingly. The man was a nervous wreck most of the time but his skills as a researcher and archivist were unmatched within the Ministry.

"It is on MARRD's list of 'Most Powerful Possible Artifacts' and any new information about Gleipnir is cataloged in our research department. We actually just received new information pertaining to Gleipnir last month; whether that is a coincidence I cannot say."

Harry perked up at Morris' words, his eyes bright with curiosity. "New information? What sort of information?"

Hermione leaned her hip against the desk as she racked her brain. She had been one of the researchers to oversee the cataloguing of the data. "A 10th century manuscript was uncovered in an old wizarding library in Germany, purporting to be a translation of an earlier work. It described the forging of the chain and the creation of the additional length. According to the manuscript, the extra length of Gleipnir was kept hidden by the dwarves for centuries, until it was taken by Sindri the dwarf and his companion Thorstein, son of Viking. The adventurers looted the chain, along with other artifacts. One can assume that Gleipnir, and possibly the First Chains, went with them on their adventures. The records place Sindri and Thorstein in many places, some as far away as what is now India."

Ron had kept quiet through all of the talk of chains, but he had been following along. He raised his hand and laughed when Hermione instinctively pointed to him as if he were one of her students. He grinned at her blush. "But the Death Eater's must have reason to believe that Lars either has the First Chains or knows where they are located."

Hermione nodded. "The chains are one of Lars' pet projects - he keeps tabs on all information about Loeding and Dromi and Gleipnir. No one has more knowledge of the chains than Lars does, and he has always thought Gleipnir is still somewhere in Scandinavia. If he managed to get his hands on the First Chains… well, it's possible. He is an extremely skilled researcher and one of the best retrievalists in the business. If he has Loeding and Dromi...the Death Eaters must know that the legends say if the two First Chains are combined in the Star Chamber in Vanaheimr, the location of Gleipnir will be revealed."

"Hermione, one thing." Harry ran a hand through his dark hair, his shoulders tense with worry. "You and Morris both have said how powerful this Gleipnir is; just what exactly can it do?"

Hermione shared a quick glance with Morris before levelling her gaze on Harry. "I can't say exactly Harry, as no one has specific information about Gleipnir. But the legends and subsequent research indicate that the chain is essentially raw Binding Magic. Theoretically, with an object like Gleipnir, the owner could bind anyone or anything to his or her will. But it is more than that: the magic comes from the Gods and that changes everything - the wielder of Gleipnir could bind entire _worlds_ to their will. It will make Voldemort's Dark Mark compulsion look like a gentle request."

**12 Grimmauld Place, Islington, London**

Hermione took a long drink from her glass of cider and grinned across the table at Ron. The redhead had been regaling the table with tales of his six months in Japan, peppering them with stories of his inadequacies with the language and customs. She watched him fondly, once again struck by how much Ron had grown and matured since the war. Gone was the insecure, sullen boy and in his place was a confident, worldly man who never took himself very seriously.

"Don't forget to tell them how none of the locals had ever seen anyone with red hair before and followed you around taking photos as if you were a sideshow freak!" Pansy Parkinson cackled beside Ron, her aristocratic features wrinkled with mirth.

Ron grimaced at her, his arm slung across her thin shoulders. He tugged her towards him and planted a wet kiss on her cheek, grinning at her show of disgust. "Yes, but I'm _your_ sideshow freak, darling."

Hermione laughed at the couple, their good-natured bickering a familiar pattern. Ever since the two of them had started seeing each other three years prior, Hermione's estimation of the pure-blood witch had grown. Her memories of Pansy at school had been of a spoilt, cowardly girl who never had a thought of her own. She was pleasantly surprised to find that Pansy had become a sharp-witted and open woman with a keen sense of business. Her Diagon Alley boutique was the toast of wizarding society and there were rumblings of a second location in Paris.

"Hermione, is it true Draco Malfoy one-upped you in Egypt?" Ginny's cheeks were rosey from her wine, and there was a grin threatening her concerned expression.

Hermione rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. "Yes he did, the git. I did all the bloody work and he just swooped in at the end and took the Book."

Across the table, Ron snickered and Hermione shot him a glare. He grinned openly back at her, his eyebrows raised. "Sounds like a solid plan to me: let someone else do the hard stuff!"

"The report I read was pretty incredible, Hermione." Harry's voice was laced with pride, his eyes warm as he watched her shoot two fingers at the red-head across from her. "The ministry should be proud."

"I'm sure they are, but it was such a disappointment. The Book of Thoth would have been such a prestigious addition to the archives. They had to scrap an entire marketing campaign, press junkets, the works. It's pretty embarrassing actually, especially when it failed so spectacularly all because of a fucking Trophy Hunter." She felt her cheeks warm and she knew her coloring was high, the anger coursing through her veins. Hermione took a deep, shuddering breath to calm herself. She wanted nothing more than to forget Egypt had ever happened.

"That's what MARRD call Malfoy and his ilk," Ron whispered to Pansy. "The terrible men and women who bag artifacts all for the filthy lucre."

"It's not funny, Ronald. Men like Draco Malfoy keep us from offering these artifacts for the betterment of society. The Book of Thoth is probably moldering in someone's trophy case right now, probably improperly stored and definitely not being catalogued with the attention only a well-trained researcher could give. It's a complete waste."

"He's turned that little company of his into quite the tidy machine," Harry mused, pouring himself a glass of firewhisky. "I've heard the board of trustees of Malfoy Enterprises has given him carte blanche to run Malfoy Retrieval as he sees fit, even if it is under the umbrella of ME. He's got Theodore Nott working for him now."

Hermione grimaced into her cider and felt the familiar burn of betrayal in the pit of her stomach. "He swiped Theo from us, offered him more money than anyone could rightly refuse. And now he has a top-notch researcher working for him, which makes my job even bloody harder. He shows up everywhere! This is the third mission I've been on where I've run into Malfoy, though this is the first time he's got the better of me."

"You could always resort to punching him again." Harry chuckled from his end of the table. Hermione threw a linen napkin at him and he ducked, laughing openly.

Hermione giggled, happy to see Harry so relaxed. He was such a high-strung man on the best of days, but lately he had been wound so tight that Hermione had been worried he might burst. Now that Ron was back, there was a better chance he would laugh more.

Ron grinned at his friends and held Pansy tight against his side. "Merlin it's good to be home with you lot."

Ginny rose from the table, bending to press a quick kiss to Harry's cheek before pulling her wand to clear the table. Pansy and Hermione stood and began to help, but Hermione stopped when Harry caught her eye.

"Gin, do you mind if Ron and I steal Hermione for a moment?"

Ginny waved at him, smiling at Hermione. "Go on you three. I'll just call Kreacher to come help."

Xx

Harry's study was where all of the shabby, cast-off furniture had ended up when Ginny had redecorated Grimmauld Place. Several overstuffed upholstered pieces were placed at random angles around the room, surrounding a scarred oak desk. Bookshelves groaned under the weight of haphazard piles of books and several dingy portraits slept in their frames on the water stained wallpaper. A fire blazed merrily in the hearth and the massive old grandfather clock in the corner ticked the seconds.

Harry tossed Hermione a can of cider and sank back into one of the chairs. Ron stood at the desk, pouring himself a glass of firewhisky. He raised his glass, watching the amber liquid swirl for a moment, and then tipped it lightly towards his two best friends. Sipping, he dropped down next to Hermione on the faded chintz sofa.

"I'll do it." Hermione popped the can open and took a swig of cider, wiping the back of her hand over her mouth.

Ron guffawed, his body shaking with laughter. "I bloody well told you, Harry. No need to explain anything to The Brightest Witch of Her Age!"

Harry rolled his eyes at Ron and turned his gaze to Hermione, his expression affronted. "How do you even know what we're about to ask?"

"Oh come off it, Harry. You're going to ask me to gather any information I can on Gleipnir. And, by extension, the Death Eaters that are hunting it."

Harry sighed and nodded. He held his empty glass up and watched as the bottle of firewhisky floated over and poured a draught into the glass. "Right on the money, as usual, Hermione." He tipped his head back and drained the glass. "We need information. Other than what you've told us about that old manuscript showing up in Germany, we have precious little to go on. But this is your realm of experience, and the Auror Department is ready to support you in any way we can."

"I don't need a team or anything like that, Harry. I work best alone - though it will be nice to know I can contact you if something does come up where I might need more sets of hands."

Ron cleared his throat. "Anything, Hermione. You get in touch with us if you need _anything_."

She smiled at him and patted his knee. "I will, of course. But Harry is right - this is what I do." She shrugged a shoulder and took another sip of cider. "I think the first thing to do is to pay a visit to Lars Ravenwood."

"We've tried that - he hasn't been home for weeks. The house is deserted, and without knowing what we were looking for... we were hesitant to search it in case he came home and it was all for nothing."

"Yes well, I'll go by there anyway. His study is the place he might have left a message or some sort of clue to his whereabouts. I'll give it a check and report back."

Ron yawned, stretching his arms over his head until his shoulders creaked with the effort. "When will you leave?"

"First thing."


	3. Chapter 2

**April 24, 2008, Ravenwood Hall, Peak District.**

Hermione's boots crunched over the pea-gravel as she walked from the Apparition Point and across the round drive of Ravenwood Hall. The house loomed over the manicured topiaries and hedges, it's ornate diapered brickwork creating a lattice effect. The morning sun glinted off the thick old glass of the numerous windows. It was a lovely house, she had always thought so. She used to love to come here, to sit with Lars in front of the fire and talk about history and geography and mysteries. But that was a long time ago.

Her Floo call that morning had gone unanswered, as expected. The Aurors told her they had tried to make contact with Lars, had even come here themselves, but to no avail.

She moved along the front walk, hurrying up the stone stairs towards the imposing front doors. As she stepped across the wide flagstone porch, she felt the ripple of the house's outer wards pass over her - as she had expected, they still recognized her. Lars had always been too absentminded to change the wards once he had a falling out.

The doors dwarfed her, the intricate carvings of vines and flowers reaching double her height. The wood was dark with age and the touch of thousands of hands. She went through the motions of heaving the large iron knocker against the wood and stepped back to wait. The echo of the knocker rumbled for a moment and then there was nothing but silence. When no one was forthcoming she drew her wand: _Alohamora_.

The ancient lock gave under her spell, and she pushed the doors inwards. As she pressed her weight forward against the wood, she thought it had been surprisingly easy - she glared at the doorknob and lock. _Silly, absentminded Lars. How easy had it been for whoever got to him first?_ Taking a breath, she stepped slowly over the threshold. The surge of magic as the main house wards hit her almost knocked her backwards. She felt the wards probing, testing and searching but she pushed through. Suddenly they gave, passing away in a slight breeze, and allowed her to enter.

The foyer was deserted, as expected. There was no movement beyond any of the doorways in the carved oak paneling. The portraits on the walls either slept within their gilded frames or watched Hermione warily. Her footfalls echoed on the checkerboard marble tiles as she made her way past the grand staircase and down a darkened corridor. No house elves came to greet her and there was a coating of dust over every surface. She felt the worry lodge itself into her stomach; Lars had either been kidnapped or killed for whatever information he had, she was sure of it. She gripped the handle of the door to his study and took a deep breath.

It was a room of dark paneled walls and built-in bookshelves, with a slate tile floor covered in an array of thick, colorful carpets. Tufted red leather sofas and armchairs sat haphazardly about the room, worn and creased with age and use. A black lacquer desk, decorated with scrolls of gilding, sat beside the gleaming marble fireplace. Books of every age and description sat on the shelves, accented by small decorative items. Hermione moved along the cases, running a finger over the book spines. Circling the room, it appeared as if nothing had been disturbed. The Auror team and whoever else had come before either hadn't breached the wards or hadn't touched anything once inside. She crossed to the desk and flipped through some of the papers scattered on the surface. Crouching, she opened drawers and felt for hidden bottoms. She was trying to look at the underside of a drawer when a noise from across the desk made her freeze.

There was a crackling sound coming from the fireplace. Hermione peered around the desk and caught green sparks of light in the depths of the black marble hearth. She stood, drawing her wand. The sparks were coalescing, swirling in a stream of green light until there was a sudden popping sound and a cloud of ash burst into the room. Hermione coughed, waving her free hand in front of her face to dispel the ashes, but kept her wand trained on the fireplace. A figure was emerging from the black cloud, coughing and dusting off his trousers. Hermione caught a flash of blonde and groaned.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me!"

The figure stilled. "Granger?"

Hermione growled, her anger spiking. She clamped down on the fury, feeling a spreading sense of deadly calm flooding her extremities. "Put your bloody hands where I can see them, Malfoy!"

Draco Malfoy stepped away from the floating ashes, his blonde hair and pale skin smeared with soot. His white buttoned shirt, probably immaculately tailored and pressed when he had left the manor that morning, was now dingy with grime. He was glaring at Hermione with thinly veiled antagonism, his grey eyes bright in the dim light. Hermione saw his wand hand twitch and she hissed, stabbing her wand in his direction.

"One move and I'll Stupefy you, ferret. What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I would assume I am here for the same reason you are, Granger." His voice was calm and conversational, one eyebrow quirked in amusement. He appeared relaxed and totally unperturbed by his less-than-manicured appearance, though Hermione could see the tension in the taut cords of his neck muscles and a twitch to his jaw. He absentmindedly dusted the soot from his left shirtsleeve and the cuff rode up his forearm, revealing the very tip of a faded tattoo.

Hermione's eyes narrowed as she was suddenly struck by a thought. "You absolute, utter _bastard_. I knew you were always on sale to the highest bidder, but even I thought you wouldn't stoop so low as to take Death Eater money!" Her voice dripped with venom, her eyes alight with fury. Her anger hit her full force and she was vaguely surprised to find herself trembling as it sang along her veins.

Malfoy's eyes went wide and he stiffened. She watched as the color bloomed in his cheeks, his eyes cold. "Granger, I don't know what you're on about but…"

Hermione didn't give him a change to finish; she snapped her wand towards him with a non-verbal hex and Malfoy dove away, his reaction impeccably timed. His hand reached for his wand and he cast a hurried _Protego_ as Hermione advanced on him, casting hexes. He was on his feet in a flash, his own wand up and casting _Impedimenta. _Hermione blocked the spell and circled around, kicking a side table into his path as he moved towards the wall. He tripped slightly and then righted himself, twisting as her _Stupefy_ spell shot past. It hit the shelf behind him, scattering books across the floor.

Malfoy moved towards her, their wands falling into a pattern of hex and block as he pushed her back. Hermione hit the bookshelf behind her and she reached out with her free hand, grasping for something to steady herself as she sent another hex towards Malfoy. Her hand landed on a book, pulling it from the shelf. It stopped, stuck in mid-fall, as if held to the shelf surface. Suddenly she was falling back, the bookshelf she was pressed against giving way. She stumbled, rolling and coming up in a crouch. Her wand was trained on Malfoy, but her eyes were drawn to the room that had been revealed when the bookshelf had slid away.

Malfoy was also openly ogling the room, his wand held slack in his hand. Hermione felt her breath catch in her throat as she took in the floor to ceiling shelves, jammed with object after object. A skylight overhead let the mid-morning sun in and it caught on gold and silver, flashing in the dusty air. Hermione recognized several artifacts right away, her brain mentally cataloguing what she could discern from the piles of objects. They had found Lars Ravenwood's famed collection.

After a moment, Hermione turned her attention back to Malfoy. He stood, his eyes roving hungrily over the shelves and Hermione felt the familiar disgust swell in her belly. _Probably tallying up how much everything is worth._ As she prepared to hex him again, this time with a full body-bind curse, the sound of the wards tearing almost dropped her to her knees. Across the room, Malfoy clapped his hands to his ears and bent over double. Hermione fell back against the wall, her head slamming into the paneling. It felt like a million knives in her brainstem, setting off fireworks behind her eyelids. The sound of a thousand voices raised in screams echoed against the ancient paneling, pressing her into the wall. As suddenly as it had come, the sensations faded. Hermione felt a trickle of blood run from her left nostril and over her lips. She swiped at it with the back of her hand, her wand-arm back up.

Three men in black robes and masks popped into the room, the swirl of Apparition making their robes twist around them. Hermione threw a glance at Malfoy and grimaced as she saw him dive behind the desk, out of sight of the three Death Eaters. She stood in a fighters stance, wand raised, as the men shook off their Apparition and orientated themselves in the room. They noticed Hermione where she stood, the hidden room illuminated behind her.

The man in front, obviously in charge, smiled and Hermione felt the breath catch in her throat. She knew that face - had seen it snarling from countless Wanted posters in the Ministry hallways. Walden Macnair leered at her, his thin face lined with the years spent on the run. His dark hair hung in greasy strands around his face and his eyes were sunken, ringed with dark circles.

"Good day, Mudblood." His voice was a whine, his lips lifting in a sneer as he regarded her with palpable hatred.

"This house is off limits, Macnair. Under the Ministry protection." Hermione hoped her bluff would dissuade him from moving forward - she wasn't sure why Malfoy was hiding from his customers, but four against one were not good odds.

"We aren't here for a friendly chat. Give us the chains and we might be merciful."

The other two Death Eaters had fanned out, their eyes roving the bookshelves in the study as they moved along the walls. Macnair continued to advance on Hermione and the entrance to the hidden room. She steeled herself, her wand arm held steady. Macnair's own wand came up and the tip glowed with a menacing light. Hermione took a deep breath, preparing her magic.

"I don't know what you are talking about." Her voice was calm and she felt a moment of pride that it didn't shake with the nerves that were rattling in her chest.

Macnair let out a thin, reedy laugh and continued to move towards her. "You know exactly what I mean, Mudblood. Surely the Aurors who sent you here told you that there were other interested parties."

Hermione watched him advance, waiting until his wand was in arms reach before she cast. Her hex threw him away from her, his robes billowing around him as his body hit the bookshelves on the other side of the room. Books exploded from the shelves. The other Death Eaters were on her then, their spells coming from either side. She cast _Protego_ and moved, getting her back against a wall.

As the two men moved towards her, she saw Macnair rise from the ground, his wand trained towards her. Hermione felt a deathly calm spread through her body as she realized she probably wasn't going to survive this fight. Gathering her magic around her, she rapidly moved through a list of spells and hexes, determined to cause as much damage as possible before she fell. Just as she was about to send out her first cast, a shouted _Impedimenta_ cut through the air and Malfoy leapt onto the desk. In the sudden confusion, Hermione almost stopped and gaped as she realized his cast had been at Macnair.

As she sent a non-verbal stunning hex at one of the Death Eaters, she grimaced at the realization that Malfoy was not working for the Death Eaters. She didn't have time to ponder that epiphany as she was too busy fending off curses, but Macnair was growling, cursing the 'Malfoy welp' as he cast a poorly aimed _Crucio_ towards the blonde. That probably wasn't an indication that Malfoy was taking their money.

She slammed a Death Eater with an _Expulso_ curse and renewed her wandless shield charm. It was taking a lot out of her, but she couldn't fight the two dark wizards without some protection. They were desperate, and fighting like crazed wolves.

The two dark wizards herded her further into the hidden chamber and her new position gave her a better view of the shelves at the back of the room. On the second to top shelf, displayed on two thin wire stands were two lengths of thin chain. They drifted slightly in the magical breezes caused by the wandwork. Hermione felt her heart tighten in her chest as she cast _Impedimenta_. How was she going to get to them before the Death Eaters saw them? She was considering making a run for the chains when one of the dark wizards cast _Fiendfyre_ and all hell broke loose.

The fire curse roared towards her and she threw herself to the ground, rolling away as she felt the heat race along her body. The spell hit the shelves at the side of the room and suddenly they were aflame. The fire spread along the old wood, devouring the books and trinkets sitting on the shelves. Hermione felt a pang of remorse as the priceless artifacts were consumed by the Fiendfyre and then shook the feeling away. It was the same feeling she had experienced during the Battle of Hogwarts, in the Room of Requirement, when Crabbe had tried to kill them with Fiendfyre. As she had run from the flames, she had mourned the piles of magical artifacts and junk as they caught fire. Throwing a quick glance towards Malfoy, where he dueled Macnair, Hermione almost laughed at how life could change. During the War, she had fought amongst Fiendfyre in the same chamber as Malfoy; only back then, they had fought against each other. And now? She watched as he hurled a hex at Macnair, his shield charm flashing in the firelight. Now, they were on the same side. _For now_. She blinked and shook herself, scanning the room. She had more pressing matters to attend to. The Death Eater who had not cast the Fiendfyre was cursing his companion and Hermione took the momentary distraction to rise to her feet.

Macnair and Malfoy were at the entrance to the hidden chamber, their wands stilled as they took in the Fiendfyre racing along the walls. Macnair looked away first, his glare sweeping the remaining shelves. Hermione went cold as she saw him catch sight of the chains, his eyes widening in recognition. She lunged towards the shelf, but as she moved a beam fell from the flame ravaged ceiling. Hermione threw herself back but Macnair skirted around the obstacle and reached the back wall. The flames had beat him there, licking along the wood, moving perilously close to the chains. The air shimmered and danced with unbearable heat. Hermione watched in horror as Macnair reached for the chains, grabbing one in each hand.

There was a sickening searing sound and suddenly the smell of burnt flesh mingled with the smell of ash and burnt wood. Macnair screamed, his expression changing quickly from joy to agony. Still screaming, he shook his hands in panic, trying to dislodge the two white-hot lengths of chain from his flesh. Hermione moved towards him, her wand swinging out as she cast curse after curse towards him. His shield-charm shimmered, weakening with his pain. Suddenly another ceiling beam collapsed, thudding to the floor in a shower of plaster and ash. Macnair was thrown back, and Hermione saw the chains drop away from his injured hands. Macnair hauled himself to his feet and, with another scream of pain as he gripped his wand with a blistered hand, Apparated away.

Hermione threw herself back as the Fiendfyre roared across the fallen ceiling beam. Scrambling to her feet, she leapt towards Malfoy. He was throwing curses at the two remaining Death Eaters and trying to maintain his shield charm. Sweat poured into his eyes and he swiped at it angrily with a soot-blackened hand. Hermione stumbled towards him, hauling herself up beside him. She pressed her back against his as one of the Death Eaters rounded on her. She could feel the hard plane of Malfoy's back against hers, his solid stance a comfort as she hurled a curse towards the dark wizard.

The heat from the fire was so intense Hermione was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. She felt the sweat evaporating from her skin. The two Death Eaters, as if on some unseen signal, were suddenly gone, their Apparition a dull shockwave of sound against the roar of the flames. She felt Malfoy sag slightly against her and then he gripped her forearm as she turned towards the fire.

"Granger, let's go!"

"Not without the chains!"

Hermione kicked a burning chair from her path as another ceiling beam slammed to the floor ahead of her. Malfoy yanked her back against him, his arm snaking across her hips protectively.

"Forget them! I want you out of here now!"

He turned them, as if to drag her from the room, and Hermione caught a glint of metal in an opening in the flames.

"There!"

She kicked back, slamming her foot into his thigh. He grunted in pain, releasing his hold on her as she lunged forward. As she moved, she tore her shirt from her body and wrapped it around her hand. The heat licked against her skin as she dropped low, reaching out and scooping the chains into her cloth covered palm. She felt hands on her calves, hauling her backwards. Malfoy helped her rise and they turned, sprinting from the room and through the study.

In the smoke-darkened hall, Hermione tripped and as she fell, the chains flew from her grip. They landed several feet apart on the carpeted floor. She lunged forward, as did Malfoy, and both of them came back up with a chain. Malfoy was staring at her, his mouth slightly open, his face unguarded. Hermione thought she detected surprise flit across his aristocratic features. She glanced down at the chain in her hand and then her head snapped to the door of the study. A wall of Fiendfyre roared at the door frame, tendrils of flame spreading out into the hallway.

"Shit! Granger - the Manor!" Malfoy's voice was rough, threaded with fear and panic. His wand was out and he was pinning her with his eyes, his other hand raised slightly as if to grab her for a Side-Along. He hesitated, until she shot her hand out and laced her fingers with his. He cast the Apparition and Hermione felt the familiar tug as they swirled away.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**April 24, 2008, Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire**

The minute the Apparition orientated them within the room, Hermione's legs gave way beneath her. She was still clutching Malfoy's hand and he grunted as her weight dragged him to the floor. He shook his hand out of her grip and winced as he straightened.

She sat in a daze, her eyes roaming around the dim room. It appeared as if they were in a library; the room was cavernous, the bookshelf lined walls disappearing into the dark. Underneath her was a plush wool carpet and she noticed several armchairs and tables nearby. There was a hearth several meters in front of her, and a fire blazed merrily in it's depths. The flames were the only source of light in the room and she tore her gaze away from them, shuddering as she remembered the Fiendfyre.

Malfoy was limping towards a table against a wall to her right. He looked terrible: he was streaked with soot and blood and his left leg appeared to be giving him some trouble. Hermione glanced down at her shirt, still wrapped around her fist. Unwrapping it, she grimaced at the bloodstains. As she shrugged it on, she wondered how much of the blood was her own.

Malfoy had reached the table and was busy pouring himself a glass of firewhiskey. He downed the glass and hiccupped before swiping his hand across his mouth. He poured a second dram and then turned, leaning back against the table as he regarded her. He reached behind him and grabbed another glass. He tipped firewhiskey into it and held it out towards her.

"You owe me an apology, Granger."

Hermione came out of her daze with a thud. She glared at him, trying to gather up the shreds of her dignity as best she could. She pulled herself up and dusted at the soot stains on her trousers. "I'll admit that I was wrong about you working for Death Eaters, Malfoy. But I will certainly not apologize. I feel pretty well justified for making that assumption. What I want to know is how the hell you knew about the First Chains."

She stalked towards him and snatched the glass from his hand. Taking a gulp of firewhiskey, she narrowed her eyes over the top of her glass. Malfoy smirked, his eyes sparking with mirth. He looked exhausted and as sore as Hermione felt, but she couldn't detect any venom in his gaze. That thought made her feel slightly off balance.

"I knew about the chains because Malfoy Retrievals has a network of informants across Europe. They're in place to provide us with information on magical artifacts. We heard last week that someone was searching for the chains and I've been combing our network trying to find out more. I learned several days ago that it was Death Eaters who were searching and that they wanted to get in contact with Ravenwood."

Her fingers clenched around the glass. "I need to tell Harry that Lars is probably dead."

Malfoy shot her a sympathetic glance, his lips pressed into a thin line. "It would seem so, Granger. I'm sorry. I know the two of you were close."

"It was a long time ago." Her eyes met his and she blinked at the sincerity in his gaze. She didn't know what to do with this Malfoy.

She took another long drink of her firewhiskey and then looked down at the chain she had gripped in her other hand. It was a ribbon-fine piece of metalworking with links the size of her thumbnail. It slid across her hand as she moved it in the light of the fire, the metal cold against her skin. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and she spent a moment admiring the work. As she turned it in the light, she caught a glimpse of markings on the last link. Miniscule runes were etched into the metal. She did a hurried translation: _Loeding_.

"You must have Dromi." She held her chain in front of her, shaking it slightly towards Malfoy. "Old Norse runes. It's definitely dwarven work…can you feel the magic radiating off them?"

Malfoy was also inspecting his chain. He nodded, letting it slide across the back of his palm as he shifted it to inspect for marks. He made a clicking sound in the back of his throat, pausing his movements. Hermione guessed he had found the runes.

"How did such a small piece of chain bind a monster like Fenrir the Wolf?"

"If you remember, these chains failed at binding him." Her nose wrinkled at how swotty she sounded. She hated how he brought out the worst in her. Malfoy cocked an eyebrow at her, but motioned for her to continue. "Ancient magic is adaptable, sometimes more so than the magic we are used to. It was more organic, more tied to nature. This can make it more easily manipulated, but it also makes it much more volatile. The chains might expand on contact with the prisoner, or perhaps they were used to chain Fenrir to something and he was actually bound with something else? Or these could just be small portions of the original chains. I don't think we will ever know the answer to that question."

Malfoy didn't respond, but continued to stare at the chain draped across his palm. He took another drink from his glass. His silence made her nervous. She felt itchy and out of place, standing in the library of Malfoy Manor. She hadn't been back here since the war.

Her mind skirted around the thought of the drawing room ceiling and the feel of the cold slate beneath her and the endless, crushing pain. She had heard Narcissa Malfoy had paid for extensive remodelling in the immediate years after her husband and son were sentenced to Azkaban. Monetary reparations had been made and when Draco had been released, the Malfoy's had re-entered wizarding society with aplomb. There was always some charity function being held at the Manor; but Hermione's invitations always seemed to end up in her trash bin.

"Malfoy, I think it's time I was going. If you'll just hand me Dromi I will remove myself from the premises before your ancestral portraits start shrieking."

Malfoy laughed. She narrowed her eyes at him and he chuckled again, closing his fist around the chain.

"I don't find any bit of this funny. Just give me the chain and -"

"I won't be doing that, Granger."

Hermione felt the anger crackling along her veins. She snarled, feeling her lips curl against her teeth. "The Ministry has tasked me with foiling whatever plan those dark wizards have cooked up and I will be damned if I let a washed-up Death Eater get in my way!"

Malfoy slammed his glass down on the table with enough force to splash the remaining firewhiskey across the polished wood. His eyes were alight with rage and she had to steel herself not to take a step backwards at the force of his anger. Her wand hand twitched.

"_Fuck. You. Granger._" He ground the words out between his teeth, color rising high on his aristocratic cheekbones. "Do you think it was a fucking party when the Dark Lord lived under this roof? There was another Fenrir, remember? And no chains to bind that one." His eyes closed momentarily, a violent shudder coursing through his lean frame. His hair was falling over his face and a streak of soot bisected one cheek.

"I am not the same person I was as a boy! I paid for my crimes, spent two hellish years in that stinking hole. My mother has paid millions of Galleons in reparations, has held a hundred balls for every charity under the gods damned sun. My father died - he rotted away in Azkaban for his sins." His voice hitched and he cleared his throat. He turned away from her, fumbling for the bottle of firewhiskey. "When is that going to be enough for you people? I paid my debt to society, I've kept my nose clean."

"You sabotaged my Ministry sponsored mission in Egypt, you git! You've been trying to disrupt my missions for months. And you stole Theo! You're no redeemed man, Malfoy." Hermione fought against her initial urge of regret as Malfoy spoke, clutching at her anger and holding on.

He turned back towards her and took a swig of his firewhiskey. He raised his glass towards her, a sardonic smirk curling his lips. "That wasn't personal, Granger, that was business. You would have done the same if our positions had been switched. Ah!" He stabbed a finger towards her, cutting off her impassioned denial. "And I didn't break any laws in Britain and probably only a few in Egypt, if any. As for Theo, we've been friends since we were boys. Not everyone wants to be a Ministry slave for their entire career, Granger. Some of us had our vaults decimated by reparation payments and a ministry salary just doesn't cut it. Not all of us have piles of war-hero money laying about."

Hermione opened her mouth to retort and found she couldn't speak. She snapped her jaw shut. Malfoy grinned at her and picked up the bottle of firewhiskey. He crossed the space between them and stood in front of her as he poured another dram into her glass. He set the bottle down and clinked his glass against hers before taking a drink. She glowered at him and he chuckled.

"Look, Granger. I want to stop the Death Eaters too. I want to rid the world of them, I want to see them all rotting in Azkaban or skewered on a pike; I don't really care which, as long as they aren't spreading their rot. I have worked too hard these last eight years to remove the stain of Dark Magic from this family. Or at least to lessen it. I know that some of what we have done cannot be erased." A look of regret flitted across his features and his eyes flicked to Hermione's arm. His expression went blank and he took another drink. "I can help you track them. I'm a dab hand at field work and I have access to the Malfoy Retrievals network of spies. I may not be a prodigy researcher like Theo, but I know my way around an archive. Let me help you."

She wanted to scream her refusal in his face and then Apparate out of there as quickly as possible. The combination of Malfoy showing emotions other than contempt and his physical nearness made her want to flee. But she steeled herself and considered his offer. He had the other chain and she wasn't sure she could get it from him by force. They were on his turf and Malfoy Manor probably had some sort of protection magic lurking in the polished oak paneling.

"I work better alone, Malfoy."

"I don't doubt it, Granger. But I don't see that you have any other choice." He dangled the chain in front of her, letting it drift before her eyes. Past the swaying length of metal, she could see his grey eyes regarding her. One eyebrow was quirked in amusement, but his gaze held what appeared to be a measure of vulnerability. For a moment she wondered what he had riding on this, why his working with her was so important. He blinked and the expression was gone, replaced with his default sardonic gaze.

"There is always another choice, Malfoy." Her breath sent the chain swaying again and she had to forcibly keep from trying to snatch it from the pale-faced git.

He smirked and closed his fist around the chain, letting his arm drop to his side. He raised his glass to his lips and downed the remaining firewhiskey. As he made to turn away from her, Hermione's hand shot out and caught at his shirtsleeve.

"Wait." Her brows furrowed in frustration and she grimaced. Malfoy watched her, his expression blank. She took a deep breath and let it out, her eyes meeting his. "You can help. But you have to give me Dromi for safekeeping."

Malfoy blinked, as if he was surprised she had capitulated. "Do I have your oath, Granger?"

"I won't Vow, if that's what you're asking."

He laughed, a surprisingly warm sound, as he turned his body back to face hers. "No, I'm not asking you to make an Unbreakable Vow, Granger. But I do require your oath. As a witch, as a member of the Ministry and as The Brightest Witch of Her Age. As Hermione Granger."

She blinked up at him, surprised to hear her given name in his voice. It sounded… odd. After the shock passed, she considered what he was asking. How Draco Malfoy knew her well enough to know that her oath, on any one of those parts of herself, would be as solid as an Unbreakable Vow was beyond her understanding. The ferret was full of surprises.

"You have it, Malfoy. I give you my oath that I will let you help me in this task." She half expected some flash of magic, some indication of Malfoy's nefarious purpose behind having her swear, but nothing happened. He simply nodded once and stepped away from her.

He moved towards the bottle of firewhiskey again, pouring himself another drink. He held it out towards her and smirked at the quick shake of her head. "What next, Granger?"

Hermione took a steadying breath. She couldn't believe she was doing this, working with Draco Malfoy. What would Harry say? Oh Merlin, what would Ron say? She stamped down the bubbling sense of panic that threatened to rise in her chest and considered his question.

"I think we should go to Norway."

He watched her over the edge of his glass. "We're after Vanaheimr, then."

She nodded, impressed. "Yes, all records and lore seem to place Vanaheimr in Norway. I think we should see what we can find in the Norwegian Ministry Archives. There might be records on the First Chains and Gleipnir as well. Do you read Norwegian, Malfoy?"

He shook his head, draining his glass. Setting it on the table beside him, he crossed his arms over his chest. "No, but I'm pretty handy with a translation spell. It's going to be tedious work, Granger."

She smiled slightly, responding to his playful tone. "Research can be tedious. Being a retrievalist, a real one, isn't all death-defying adventure."

"Touche. But that's what I've got Theo for."

She felt the familiar anger bubbling again and she threw him a dark look. He laughed at her outright then, his expression open and unclouded. She scowled at him for finding her anger humorous.

"You're never going to forgive me for swiping Theo from the Ministry, are you Granger?"

Hermione huffed, pushing her curls out of her eyes. "Drop it, Malfoy. So we go to Oslo."

Still grinning, Malfoy crossed the room towards her. "Yes. Go home and pack. I'll meet you at the International Portkey Office at 9:00 tomorrow morning."

She stuck her hand out, palm up, and waggled her fingers. He threw her a quizzical look and she hissed at him. "Dromi. Give me the chain, Malfoy."

"I don't think I will, Granger. Not yet."

Hermione shrieked in frustration, stamping her foot. She knew she was acting childish but she was so gods damned tired and sore and out of patience with the miserable git. "Fucking hell, just give me the chain!"

Malfoy chuckled, moving closer to her. His hand came up and she flinched, then felt foolish as he took the glass from her hand. He raised an eyebrow as he sat the glass on the table beside her. As he turned back, he gently took her elbow in his hand and began to steer her towards the fireplace. She suppressed a quiet gasp at the contact and resisted the urge to jerk her arm out of his hold. As he escorted her to the Floo, she was keenly aware of the feel of his grip through her shirtsleeve.

He grabbed the hanging bag of Floo powder from it's hook above the hearth and tipped a handful into her hand. She glowered at him, opening her mouth to demand he give her the chain again but he squeezed her arm.

"I'll give it to you in Norway, I promise. Go home. You're knackered, and so am I."

He gave her a gentle shove towards the fireplace. She peered up at him, her expression confused. So many sides of Malfoy in one night; it was enough to do her head in. She shook the confusion off and stepping into the fireplace. As she raised her hand to throw the Floo powder, Malfoy grinned at her.

"Oh, and Granger? Take a shower. You look a fright."

As she shouted her address, Hermione glared at the blonde man as he smirked at her through the flames. _What a git._

**April 25, 2008, International Portkey Office, Department of Magical Transportation, Ministry of Magic**

"Kingsley wanted me to remind you that you are representing the Ministry on this mission, Hermione." Harry grinned at her, his eyes crinkling with laughter behind his glasses. "So please try not to hex Malfoy into oblivion and cause an international incident. It would be a lot of paperwork."

Ron laughed as Hermione shot two fingers at her friend, her other arm buried in her beaded bag. She rummaged around, mentally cataloging the supplies she had packed the night before. She leaned against the wall outside the doorway to the International Portkey Office, avoiding the bustling crowds of Ministry workers that clogged the corridor. Harry and Ron lounged beside her on the uncomfortable chairs provided for those waiting for their portkey appointments. All three ignored the curious looks and whispers that still trailed them, even a decade after the war.

"I'll refrain from causing the git any more harm than necessary, Harry. I'm a professional."

She was still reeling a bit from the lack of response from either of her best friends when she had informed them who would be accompanying her on this mission. She had Flooed Harry from her flat after returning from Malfoy Manor the night before and had been struck silent by his easy acceptance of Malfoy as a partner. He was surprised, but more because he would never have expected Hermione to willingly work with Malfoy and less because of Malfoy himself.

Ron had been at Grimmauld Place last night and had stuck his head into the Floo Call, his nose wrinkled in distaste at the news. But there had been no roaring, no furious demands that she tell Malfoy to go to hell, no extreme emotions at all. It was very curious. It would seem that Harry, and maybe even Ron, had some reason to change their opinion of Malfoy. She wasn't sure how she had missed that piece of information.

There was a slight commotion at one end of the corridor and Hermione's head came up in time to see a dark-haired wizard elbowing his way through a clutch of Ministry workers. She grinned at the slender man's obvious distaste as he brushed his hands against the front of his trousers, as if he had touched something soiled. Theo never had liked crowds.

Theodore Nott, skilled researcher and snobbish Slytherin, stalked down the hall towards the Golden Trio. He was trailed by Malfoy, who was also displaying a deep sense of unease around all of the people in the corridor. Both men looked as haughty as a pair of pure-blood aristocrats could, their immaculately tailored clothing and perfectly coiffed hair gleaming in the harsh lights of the Ministry.

"Granger, I don't know why you had to schedule your departure during such a busy hour. Crowds are distinctly uncivilized."

Hermione gave the dark haired man a quick hug, her grin widening. "Theo, I do love to see you so uncomfortable. It's character building. Besides, you can thank your _friend_ for the time of our departure."

Theo shot Malfoy a disgusted look. "Really, Draco? What a bourgeois thing to do."

Malfoy laughed at his friend, clapping a hand against his back. "You'll live, Nott. Hello, Potter. Weasley." He stuck his hand out to Harry, who took it without hesitation. She had to restrain herself from fainting dead away as Ron also shook the blonde man's hand. No insults were uttered or hexes thrown. _Have we entered another dimension?_

"Draco tells me you still haven't forgiven him for offering me a position at Malfoy Retrievals, Hermione." Theo leaned a shoulder against the wall next to her, folding his arms across his chest. She wondered, not for the first time, if Theo spelled his clothing to keep from wrinkling as none of his movements ever seemed to crease his immaculate shirts and trousers.

"He's right, Theo. I don't think I ever can forgive him. I still wonder how I've managed to forgive you for leaving." She pouted playfully, her eyes dancing. Theo grinned at her and bumped his knee against her thigh.

"You've got to get over it, woman. The Ministry doesn't pay enough and that's a fact. And I was just a researcher here, one of many. Under Malfoy, I'm the _lead researcher_. I do miss my colleagues though, a certain impulsive harridan in particular."

Hermione stuck her tongue out at him and laughed. _Harridan, indeed._

"I miss you too, Theo. The office is definitely not as _civilized_ as it was when you were there." She smiled fondly at the man and then glanced over at the other three as Ron guffawed at something Malfoy said. Had Ron just laughed at one of Malfoy's jokes? If she hadn't been leaning against the wall she might have fallen over. Theo chuckled softly beside her and leaning conspiratorially towards her.

"He just promised Potter and Weasley that he would make sure you didn't cause any international incidents while you two are gone."

Hermione pushed herself upright, straightening her shirt as she moved towards the three men. "The best way you can keep any _incidents_ from happening, Malfoy, is to keep out of my way."

He turned towards her, his smirk not quite reaching his eyes. "Oh believe me, Granger, I won't get in your way. I wouldn't want to be lectured to death. That would be a hellish way to go, death by swot."

"If you weren't such a deplorable reprobate, no one would need to lecture you. But alas, you're in desperate need of correction."

"Are you volunteering to… _correct_ me, Granger?"

She felt her cheeks reddening and she cursed her ready blush. Malfoy was smirking at her as she narrowed her eyes at his suggestive tone. She didn't notice Ron's eyes moving between her and Malfoy, his expression contemplative. As he observed Hermione's deepening blush and Malfoy's obvious glee at her discomfort, he seemed to reach a conclusion that amused him. Harry was rolling his eyes beside Ron, offering a silent prayer to any deity that was listening that they both survived this mission without killing each other. Theo just looked bored.

"Our portkey leaves in ten minutes, Malfoy. We need to go." She turned away from him, throwing her arms around Harry and Ron. She squeezed them, taking comfort and a sense of balance from their returning embrace.

"Try not to kill him, Hermione." Ron's voice was a stage whisper, his eyes full of mirth. "It would be very inconvenient for everyone." He kissed her on her cheek as he released her.

She grinned at him as Theo reached out and squeezed her arm. Behind her, Harry was shaking Malfoy's hand again. Her eyes narrowed as Theo chuckled.

"Yes, Granger. Please do try not to curse him. I wouldn't want my paycheck disrupted."


	5. Chapter 4

**April 25, 2008, Magiarkivsdepartementet (Norwegian Ministry of Magic Archives), ****Gamle Oslo, Oslo**

Draco Malfoy hadn't read this many scrolls and parchments since Hogwarts. His career as a retrievalist had been expressly about connecting him with the parts of history and magic that he enjoyed, while allowing him to use his wealth to farm out the parts he didn't. He paid people to do this. He paid them to research so he could travel the world and risk his life doing death defying stunts. Theo had been coaxed away from the Ministry with an offer of double his salary so that he could be the one buried nose-deep in musty old parchment. Draco's eyes swept the table in front of him as he grimaced at the stacks of books and piles of paper. They had been at it for hours, ever since their arrival in Oslo that morning.

After their talk at the Manor the day before, he wasn't sure where he stood with Granger. She had been furious with him for not handing over Dromi, and he knew that most of that anger was because of Egypt. He smirked at the parchment in front of him, remembering the look of disbelief on her face when he had put his hand out for the Book of Thoth. She had lain there, her chest heaving as she caught her breath, her eyes squinting up at him murderously. After she had attacked him and Apparated away, he had talked with his local guides and received a clearer picture of what she had gone through to retrieve the Book. He couldn't lie and say that he didn't feel a slight pang of remorse for taking her prize, but it had only been slight.

Across the table, Granger sat hunched over a book, her curls hiding her face. She shifted in her seat, as if sitting in one position for too long was painful and he had to commiserate. Their duel with dark wizards the day before had definitely left behind physical reminders in the way of sore and bruised limbs. She stretched her arms over her head with a groan and he tried not to ogle the strip of creamy skin that appeared in the gap between shirt hem and waistband. He blinked and steadied his gaze on the massive tome in front of him.

He let his eyes follow the ancient script, a finger hovering over the words as he read. The translation charm Granger used was impressive, but it wasn't infallible. It was especially difficult translating antiquated language, and more often than not the sentences read as a garbled mess. It required cross-referencing with multiple dictionaries and contemporary documents; the process was stilted and complicated. It wasn't exactly conducive with trying to decipher already obscure texts.

He growled, throwing himself back into his chair and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. "Merlin's balls, Granger! This is impossible."

She waved a frustrated hand over the immense, leather bound book in front of her. "This collection of Viking era sagas is impenetrable. I've come across a few references to Vanaheimr but nothing at all about the Chains, and nothing that we didn't already know." She sneered at the pocket Norwegian-English dictionary she had insisted on buying at the ministry gift shop downstairs.

Draco dragged a hand through his hair and growled again, staring daggers at the paper in front of him. "I've found nothing since that one reference to Gleipnir in that other book of sagas. Nothing concrete, nothing new. How do researchers do this for a living? I feel like I need to burn something to the ground to relieve the frustration."

Granger rose from her chair and moved around the table to the stack of books they had accumulated from the shelves and reference librarians. Her hair was a cloud of curls around her heart-shaped face, and Draco had to suppress a laugh as she absentmindedly tried to push it away from her eyes. He let himself admire her trim torso in its white v-neck tshirt and her shapely legs in their sensible cargo trousers.

He had long ago realized that she was an attractive witch; had it been that first mission he had disrupted? The one in Scotland. She had stood over an excavation pit, her hair wild and her eyes bright with excitement. The rigorous training and missions had honed her body into a coiled whip of lean muscle. As he had repelled over the cliff to the sound of her indignant shouts, he had been forced to admit she had grown into her looks.

Running a finger along the book spines, she chose one and made her way back to her chair. Draco lowered his gaze back to his research, careful not to let her see him admiring her figure. Her body might earn the caress of his gaze, but her caustic swottiness made him shudder. She palmed her wand, flicking it over the open book. The wordless translation charm sparkled over the pages and sunk into the parchment. Draco could see the old fashioned script begin to rearrange itself into comprehensible English words.

As she set about trying to decipher her book, Draco exhaled noisily. His research was going nowhere. His eyes scanned the script in front of him and he grimaced, turning the page. As the parchment lowered and the charm began to work, Draco sucked in a hissing breath. Excitement curled low in his stomach as he read.

"Granger, listen to this." Without looking up from the page, Draco began to read. "_Then Allfather sent him who is called Skirnir, down into the region of the dwarves, and caused to be made the fetter named Gleipnir. The fetter was smooth as a silken ribbon, but as sure and strong as thou shalt now hear. Then the Gods went out upon the lake called Amsvartnir, to the island called Lyngvi, and summoning the Wolf with them, they showed him the chain and bade him burst it, saying that it was somewhat stouter than appeared from its thickness. And each passed it to the others, and tested it with the strength of their hands and it did not snap; yet they said the Wolf could break it. Then the Wolf answered: 'Touching this chain, it seems to me that I shall get no glory of it, though I snap asunder so slender a band; but if it be made with cunning and wiles, then, though it seem little, that band shall never come upon my feet.' Then the Gods answered that he could easily snap apart a slight chain, he who had before broken great fetters of iron, — 'but if thou shalt not be able to burst this band, then thou wilt not be able to frighten the gods ; and then we shall unloose thee.' The Wolf said:' If ye bind me so that I shall not get free again, then ye will act in such a way that it will be late ere I receive help from you ; I am unwilling that this band should be laid upon me. Yet rather than that ye should impugn my courage, let some one of you lay his hand in my mouth, for a pledge that this is done in good faith. Each of the Gods looked at his neighbor, and none was willing to part with his hand, until Tyr stretched out his right hand and laid it in the Wolf's mouth. But when the Wolf lashed out, the fetter became hardened; and the more he struggled against it, the tighter the chain was. Then all laughed except Tyr: he lost his hand_."

Draco took a breath, his mind spinning. The archaic language was heavy on his tongue, and he had been surprised by how easily he had settled into the rhythm of the story. A small sigh across the table made him look up; Granger sat with her arms folded across her chest, her expression enraptured. Her lips were parted and her eyes were wide; Draco could practically feel the waves of excitement radiating from her body.

"Malfoy, that's new. I don't think I've ever heard a more detailed description of the binding." She rose, her movements quick as she began flipping through the stack of books and parchments they had already searched. "They tricked him into allowing Gleipnir to bind him. I wonder if being willing effects the binding magic in any way? I'll have to bring that question to the MARRD researchers." Her voice was distant, her eyes on the scroll she was unrolling. "What was the place where they summoned Fenrir?"

He felt his own heart begin to race, feeding off her obvious excitement. He scanned back over the script in front of him, finding the passage. "Lyngvi, an island in a lake called Amsvartnir."

"Amsvartnir… Old Norse for 'pitch black.' A black lake. Here! There's a reference to a black lake in Vanaheimr in this old scroll. According to Norse cosmology, Vanaheimr is below Midgard in the Nine Worlds. I've always assumed that this would mean it was underground, which would explain so many of these references. A dark underground lake, dwarves… I wonder if it's connected to Nidavellir?" Granger continued to leaf through the scrolls and stacks of parchments, her eyes sweeping the lines of translated text. She didn't notice Draco rolling his eyes, the corner of his mouth quirking upward as the words tumbled from her mouth.

"Nidavellir? What are you rambling on about, Granger?" His voice was heavy with laughter and Granger glanced up, confusion flitting across her face as she caught his amused gaze. She scowled, a light blush spreading up from her chest. She swept her errant curls away from her face and assumed her haughtiest expression.

"Nidavellir is the home of the dwarves. One would assume it is where Gleipnir and the First Chains were forged. There are so many connections; the dwarves were under the auspices of the Vanir, the Old Norse nature gods who gave their name to Vanaheimr. There were two sets of gods, the Vanir and the Aesir. The Aesir lived in Asgard, the highest of the Nine Worlds. There is a certain strain of academia that think the Vanir could actually be the Seidhrfolk, the original wizarding community of Scandinavia. Before Christianity arrived and made them nervous."

Draco listened intently, impressed by her ready knowledge. The world knew how intelligent Granger was: brightest witch of her age, and all that. But to see it in practice was impressive, he had to admit. As she spoke, he let his gaze fall on her lips. When she stopped, he blinked and looked away.

"So Vanaheimr would be an ancient wizarding district?" Draco's voice seemed to break her concentration and it was Granger's turn to blink at him. She regarded him with approval, her brown eyes warm. But then something seemed to make her uncomfortable and she looked away, shifting in her seat. Draco looked back down at the parchment in front of him and turned the page, his mind a riot of information and flashes of wild curls. He willed himself to focus and as he took in the marks on the page, his eyes widened. His finger drifted above the paper for a moment before glancing up at her.

"Granger, you should see this." Something in his voice made her suck in a quick breath, and she rose from her chair and moved towards him. She angled her body over him, her hair falling over her shoulder and tickling his face as she peered at the book spread open on the table. Draco got a whiff of citrus and smoke; he tried not to be obvious as he took a deep, cleansing breath. Her eyes flicked to him and she drove an elbow into his side, making him wince away from her with a yelp.

"Do you always have to be such a git, Malfoy?" Her voice was tight with disgust, but her eyes were hurt. Draco felt a wave of confusion, unsure what he had done to wound her. He opened his mouth to ask, but she turned away from him. Her mouth was set in a hard line and he swallowed his question, feeling unsteady.

The ancient parchment was yellowed with age, full of sinuous shapes drawn in a dark, coppery ink. The shapes were labeled in a spidery script, barely legible despite the translating charm. Granger stared at the page; Draco swore he could hear the gears in her mind turning as she struggled to decipher what she was looking at. Malfoy watched her, waiting quietly. Suddenly, something clicked into place behind her eyes and she gasped.

"It's a map! Malfoy, it's a bloody map!"

He smirked up at her, his eyes dancing. "I was wondering when you would catch up, Granger. But not just any map." A long, aristocratic finger poised over a word at the top of the page, drawing her attention to the curling script. Granger blinked, her voice an awed whisper.

"Vanaheimr."

She hauled her chair over beside him and sank into it, her elbows resting on the table in front of her. She was so enthralled by the map that she didn't notice her shoulder pressed against Draco's side, or the way he stiffened at the contact. All sensation compressed to that one point of contact and Draco had to resist the urge to jerk himself away from her. Instead, he shifted in his chair and allowed her shoulder to drop away. He watched as her eyes tracked along each line of ink, seemingly oblivious to his discomfort. But her jaw twitched slightly and her fingers flexed on the desk.

"They're chambers, one after the other. I don't think it's to scale, or even geographically correct...more like a representation of room after room. A hall, perhaps? But no, see how they branch off in different directions. What does this remind you of, Malfoy? It's on the tip of my tongue."

Draco cocked his head to the side, contemplating the strange shapes and spidery script. "If you've got a hunch that Vanaheimr might be underground, could it be a cave system?"

Granger gasped, her body straightening in her chair. She stared at the parchment for a moment and then turned her face up to Draco's, her eyes bright as a smile broke across her face. He watched as the skin around her eyes crinkled and he caught a flash of her white teeth. There was a dusting of freckles across her small nose that he had never noticed before. A pale scar from one of her newly healed injuries cut through an eyebrow. She grinned up at him, her happiness palpable. In that moment, all of her earlier frustration and anxiety melted away.

"That's it! Malfoy, that has to be it! A system of subterranean chambers, branching off of each other. Look at these labels: Great Hall, Sleeping Chamber, Forge, Kitchens...it was a community! And here, look, this one says Star Chamber! That's where the location of Gleipnir is supposed to be revealed!" Granger's voice was high with excitement, her hands shaking as they hovered over the parchment. Draco leaned forward, his finger tracking across the map.

"Granger, look at this one. What does that say?"

"Oh Godric, Malfoy. It says 'Black Lake.'" Her voice was soft, vibrating with excitement. "Is there an entrance to the caves?"

"Here." Draco pointed at the right hand side of the parchment, at a chamber that ended at the edge of the page. A label slanted across, trailing up to a small corridor. "The black hole. Well, that tells us absolutely nothing."

Granger scooted closer, reading the script he had pointed out. She huffed a breath, her eyes sweeping across the rest of the page. Draco felt the disappointment like a heavy weight on his chest. His eyes roved over the paper, but there was nowhere else that looked as if it could be the entrance. Granger wilted beside him, her excitement leaking away. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Another dead end. Merlin. This could be anywhere." Her voice hitched and she flushed. She blinked several times, her eyes suspiciously bright.

Draco felt a sudden urge to reach for her, to squeeze her arm in comfort. His fist clenched on the arm of his chair. He cleared his throat. "Make a copy of this, Granger. If we ever do find anything that tells us where the hell we're supposed to find this fucking place, it will come in handy." He scowled, his eyes flitting to the stacks of books waiting at the other end of the table. "At least we know it's a cave system."

Granger flicked her wand at the map, watching as it copied line by line onto a blank sheet of parchment. Draco used the moment to steady his own breath, pushing the frustration down. He had kept his reasons for demanding that she allow him to accompany her on this mission to himself, but he would allow himself to recognize that ridding the world of Death Eaters was high on the list. He wanted to solve this riddle and thwart their plans just as much as Granger did.

When the copy was finished, Granger rolled it up and stashed it in that gaudy beaded bag she carried everywhere. Pushing her chair back from the table, she rose to her feet. "Come on, Malfoy. We need a break. I've made an appointment for us to meet an old colleague who works here in Oslo, maybe he'll have some information for us. If we're lucky, he'll have some knowledge of Scandinavian caves."

Draco hauled himself out of his chair, twisting to stretch his cramped back. He straightened and felt his posture fall into place, his spine aligning and his neck lengthening. He cast a haughty glance across the littered table, his lips curling in a sneer. _Merlin, I am knackered._

"I hope you had the foresight to make this appointment in a pub, Granger. I need a fucking drink."

**Veivisergaten, Gamle Oslo, Oslo**

The sun was dipping low behind the white clapboard buildings of Veivisergaten. The wizarding street in Norway's capital was a meandering road that curved along the edge of a hill in Gamle Oslo, the oldest district in the city. At one end of the road was the sprawling government complex of the Magi Departementet, it's gleaming white stone walls reflecting the last rays of the sun. As Draco stepped out onto the street, he shrugged into his coat and zipped it to his chin. The late April evenings still held a chill.

Granger was behind him, zipping her own coat. She stepped down the entry steps and onto the cobblestones of the Veivisergaten. She moved beside Draco and they began to walk. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and hunched his shoulders into the cool wind. His gray eyes surveyed the twin rows of white buildings lining the street. "Who's this bloke we're meeting, then?"

Their boots thudded against the damp cobblestones. It was growing darker by the second now that the sun had dipped fully behind the buildings. The glow from the windows cast pools of light onto the cobbles. As the day faded, Draco admired the regular rows of windows with their peaked pediments and carved trim.

"His name is Jakob Berg. He's a retrievalist with the Norwegian Ministry and has worked on a few cooperative cases with MARRD. I met him on a mission near York several years ago involving some Viking artifacts. We've kept in touch."

Draco wondered if this Berg had been her lover. He ignored his negative reaction to that unasked question, stamping it down violently. Instead, he watched her from the corner of his eyes as they walked. Her khaki green puffer coat swallowed her petite frame, the oversized hood pushing her riotous curls to puff out around her face even more than usual. The chill in the air had caused twin roses to bloom on her cheeks and her eyes were bright as they took in the quaint street with its gleaming white buildings. He felt his physical attraction to her rise in his chest and swamp through his veins.

"Where are we meeting him?" He kept his voice neutral and calm, willing it not to hitch. She threw a glance at him and he realized that something was making her uncomfortable.

"A pub at the other end of Veivisergaten." Her voice clapped harshly in the quiet and she winced.

Draco turned his face towards her and tracked the blush as it rose from her neck to her cheeks. He frowned at her, annoyed that she was acting like a nervous teenager. "What's crawled up—? What's the matter, Granger?" _Merlin, she gets under my skin._

She opened her mouth, probably to deny that anything was the matter, and then closed it with a snap. He glanced away from her and up the road, and when he turned his attention back, he realized she was no longer beside him. He turned and saw her standing behind, her head cocked as she watched him. Draco stayed rooted to the spot, the several meters between them a comfort.

"What's the matter? I'll tell you what the matter is, Malfoy. This is so strange!" Her breath puffed little clouds into the air as she spoke. "I don't understand why you are being so civil."

"You don't want me to be civil?" Draco let his confusion seep into his voice and almost laughed as she glared at him.

"That's not it! I just don't understand why you are."

"Granger… I'm a grown man, not a teenager. I can be civil in all sorts of situations."

"Even situations involving a Mudblood?" The word hung in the air between them, the weight of it pressing Draco into the cobbles. The minute it had left her mouth, he had flinched. The revulsion that word caused rolled through him. Granger watched, her expression curious, as he composed himself.

"I am not the same boy I was in school, Granger."

She huffed, and Draco would have sworn she had to keep herself from stomping her foot like an angry child. "You keep saying that, Malfoy. And yet, since the War ended, you have been terrible to me."

"I explained this to you; our interactions since the War have been _business_. Nothing in my behaviour has ever been related to your blood status! I don't give a shit who your parents are." He pushed a hand through his hair, his jaw clenched. The familiar shame of his past actions settled on him like a pall. He shrugged it off, feeling his expression harden. "Can we keep walking? Wouldn't want your friend to worry, you being out here with a former Death Eater and all."

Granger's mouth twisted at the self-deprecation in his voice. She began to walk and he fell in step beside her. She didn't look up at him when she spoke. "So you trying to sabotage my missions is just how you do business?"

His laughter was sharp. "I may not be the boy I was in school, Granger, but I'm still a Slytherin and a Malfoy. I do what I have to do to make my business successful. And besides, competing with you is fun." He smirked, watching her out of the corner of his eye as they continued to move down the darkened street. As they came around a curve, a building with a bright picture window spilled light out onto the cobblestones. The dull roar of voices and laughter told them that it was a popular pub. Granger moved towards the entrance but Draco's words stopped her.

"You're a worthy opponent, Granger."

She stared up at him with wide eyes, her entire body frozen in place. He felt a sudden panic and a need to diffuse the situation. There were a million questions swirling in her eyes and the last thing he wanted to do was answer them. He moved forward and wrapped a gentle grip around her elbow. She started at the contact, but didn't move away.

Draco steered her towards the open door of the pub. Above them hung a painted wooden sign with a jolly dwarf holding a tankard of ale. Draco could hear someone calling for a pint. As they moved into the pub, Granger let her gaze fall away from him.

The moment was lost.


	6. Chapter 5

**April 25, 2008, ****Den Dronke Dverg, Gamle Oslo, Oslo**

The pub was lit with oil lamps and wizarding lights, casting a hazy orange glow over the room. Shadows clung to the corners and far reaches of the room, licking at the edges like rabid animals. Groups of witches and wizards clustered around scarred oak tables, their voices raucous. A long bar ran along the length of the room and the lamplight reflected off the rows of glass bottles and shining brass fixtures. At the far end of the room loomed a massive stone fireplace, the fire in its maw dancing merrily.

As Hermione and Malfoy ducked through the front door, the flames glowed green and a laughing couple stumbled out of the fire to the loud greetings of their friends. Hermione glanced back at Malfoy as he let go of her elbow. She felt the quiet absence of his touch like a loss, and wondered again why her body reacted to him this way.

As they orientated themselves in the room, she let her confusion rush through her limbs. He was hot and cold; she couldn't read him. She had been so sure that his exaggerated attraction to her in the archives had all been his idea of a joke: the darkened eyes, the heated gazes and the smelling of her hair! She had been surprised how much it had hurt, which was obviously his design. But then he called her a _worthy opponent_ and touched her with gentle intent. It was making her head spin.

She felt a soft pressure at the small of her back and realized Malfoy was guiding her into the pub, away from the entrance. She shook herself, squaring her shoulders and trying to dispel her unease. Her gaze swept the room and she grinned when she spotted a tall man with sandy hair seated at a table near the fireplace. He was nursing a pint, his rugged features set in an open expression of cheerfulness. He caught sight of Hermione and half rose from his chair, raising his glass in greeting. She waved and set off across the room, Malfoy trailing in her wake.

As she approached, she admired Jakob's tanned skin and the stubble lining his strong jaw. An old scar bisected his cheek and his top lip, lending a dashing sense of danger to his face. He rose from the chair and she felt a warmth of appreciation at his wide chest and muscled legs as he wrapped her in a quick hug.

"Hermione! You are a sight for sore eyes." His voice was deep and lightly accented. He waved her to a chair next to him and turned to Malfoy, his smile widening. "And Draco Malfoy. Your reputation precedes you, friend."

Malfoy stared for a breath at Jakob's outstretched hand and Hermione felt a spike of annoyance before he reached out and clasped it. She restrained herself from sighing in relief as Malfoy folded his lanky body into the chair across the table.

"Malfoy this is Jakob Berg, Norwegian Ministry Retrievalist."

"_Former_ ministry retrievalist, Hermione. I left my government position last year."

Hermione blinked at him. She was aware of Malfoy's quick smirk in her peripheral vision and she scowled slightly. She opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by the barmaid. The witch stood beside their table, wiping her hands with her apron and nodded as Malfoy asked for firewhiskey. Hermione grumbled that she would like a pint and continued to glower as the woman turned away towards the bar.

Malfoy chuckled and rapped his knuckles lightly against the table top. "So you're working freelance, Berg. Welcome to the club. Money's better and no government stiffs breathing down your neck at every turn."

Jakob grinned, taking a gulp of his pint before wiping a tanned hand across his mouth. "No argument there, Malfoy. It was the best career decision I've ever made."

Hermione spluttered, her hands waving ineffectually. "Jakob! I can't believe you left the ministry to work _freelance_." Her face contorted in disgust as she mouthed the word and Malfoy's smirk grew even bolder. The barmaid returned, bearing their drinks, and Hermione snatched hers from the witch's grasp. She took a long drink and then set it forcefully on the table, sloshing a small bit onto the scarred table top.

Jakob gave her a gentle look of reproach and reached out to pat her clenched hand. "Hermione. You have got to abandon this idea that freelance is somehow inferior to a government job. Just because I'm no longer on the ministry payroll doesn't mean my morals have abandoned me. I still care deeply for the conservation of the artifacts I seek and want them to be preserved for posterity. I just happen to be able to call the shots and make a bit more money in the process now."

His gentle chiding made Hermione blush, and she hid her face in her curls as she took another drink. She could see Malfoy openly grinning behind his glass as he looked at Jakob with approval.

"Well said, Berg." Malfoy tipped his firewhiskey towards the Norwegian and took an exaggerated drink. Jakob laughed as he returned the gesture with relish. Hermione wanted nothing more than to sink into the floor.

She shook the feeling off and gathered her dignity around her like a cloak. Pushing her hair away from her face, she grimaced. "Yes, well, I'm sure you are doing a wonderful job, Jakob. I didn't mean to insult your morality."

Jakob grinned at her, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder. He gave her a light squeeze and Hermione smiled sheepishly at him. As she turned back to the table, she caught the quick scowl that flashed across Malfoy's face. His silver eyes were trained on the point of contact where Jakob's hand rested lightly on her shoulder. She felt her blush rising again and she shifted in her chair, Jakob's hand dropping back to the table.

She cleared her throat and took a fortifying sip of her pint before turning her gaze back to Jakob. "We were hoping to speak to you about why we're in Norway. I know my message was a bit vague."

He laughed. "All you said was that you and Malfoy needed to come do a bit of research. But I'm not an idiot, Hermione. I know what happened during your War; I know that there is no love lost between the Golden Trio and the Malfoy family. I also know your thoughts on freelance retrievalists; what was the term you use? Trophy hunters?"

Hermione felt the blush burning her cheeks and she fought the urge to duck her head again behind her curls. Jakob laughed and smiled at her reassuringly.

"All I'm saying is that I know you wouldn't be on a casual research trip with a trophy hunter, let alone a _Malfoy_ trophy hunter. This must be something big, and considering the rumblings we've been hearing from our informants across Northern Europe, I would say it's something to do with the group of dark wizards trampling around cave sites."

Hermione jerked upright in her chair. Across the table, Malfoy had also come to attention, the firewhiskey sloshing from his glass as he leaned forwards. Jakob glanced between them, his expression guarded. He swept his gaze around the room and then set his pint on the table, scooting his chair closer.

"I can't give you my sources, you understand." His voice had dropped to just above a whisper. He waited for Hermione's nod before continuing. "But we've heard there's a group of them, never more than eight or so. They've been spotted at cave sites in Sweden, Finland and here in Norway. They never stay for long and they don't cause any fuss. But they're noticed."

Hermione chewed on her bottom lip, her head cocked to the side as she let this information settle in her mind. The Death Eaters knew that Vanaheimr was a cave system. They had known for some time, apparently. She wondered how many steps ahead of them they were. It made her chest clench with fear.

"What else have you heard?" Malfoy's voice was a low rumble and Hermione glanced across the table at him. He had leaned forward, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped in front of him. By the look of his white knuckles, he too wasn't happy to hear that the Death Eaters were in the lead.

Jakob shifted in his seat, taking another swift glance around the room. "The one in charge is a man called Walden MacNair. He is the only one we can confirm actually served your Dark Lord when he was alive."

"Not _our_ Dark Lord, Jakob. Or, at least, not _mine._" Hermione threw an apologetic glance at Malfoy and he grimaced as he looked away, jaw clenched.

"Yes well, _that_ Dark Lord. Apparently MacNair leads this motley crew. He's had a recent injury, some sort of burns on his hands?" He caught her stiffening reaction and cocked his head in question. She waved him on. "The dwarves reported that he's been sniffing around forges, trying to have casts made from the burn scars. Most of the tribes won't have anything to do with dark magic, but there are outcasts. Our sources seem sure he has found someone to do the work."

Malfoy growled and stared into his firewhiskey. Hermione's fingers clenched around her pint and she felt the rage bubble up in her chest. The Death Eaters had made casts of the First Chains. Would that work? Would they imbue them with dark magic to force the ritual to find Gleipnir? Was that possible? The questions tumbled around in her head and she felt dizzy. She took a steadying breath and focused her attention back on Jakob.

"When I got your message, I had a feeling your coming to Oslo had something to do with this. So I made a list of all the cave systems they've been spotted at and tried to think of ones they might not have visited yet. They're looking for something, aren't they?"

"Vanaheimr." Hermione's voice was hoarse and she took another swig of her pint. "They're looking for Vanaheimr."

Jakob sucked in a breath and whistled, his eyes flashing between Hermione and Malfoy. "Vanaheimr, hey? The old tales do say the realm of the Seidhrfolk was underground..." His voice trailed off as he sat back in his chair, his expression contemplative.

"Berg, are there any caves that might reference a black hole?" Malfoy's voice cut through the haze and Hermione jumped at the sound of it. Jakob looked up and cocked his head as he thought.

"Black hole? Well, there is a cave north of Stavanger called Svarthola. That literally translates to -"

"Black hole." Hermione was breathless, her body rigid with anticipation. "That translates to 'black hole,' doesn't it Jakob? That must be it. That _has_ to be it."

Jakob nodded and looked between the pair. "And it just happens to be one of the caves on my list to give you, one where the dark wizards have not been seen."

Hermione pushed her chair back, rising to her feet. She was full of nervous energy, her limbs trembling as she danced from foot to foot. "We need to get to Stavanger, Jakob. We need to get there as soon as possible."

The men rose from the table and Malfoy reached across, settling his hand palm down on her shoulder. The steadying contact warmed her and sent a shot of calm through her veins. She quieted her nervous fidgeting, taking a deep breath and shooting him a grateful glance. Jakob watched them with an unreadable expression, though Hermione could detect a hint of amusement around his eyes.

"I can get you to Stavanger tonight if you are comfortable with Side Along. It's too late to go to the caves, but I can leave you with directions. I cannot accompany you past Stavanger, though. I hope you understand."

She nodded, her hand reaching for his arm. "We understand, Jakob. This can't become an international incident, even if you don't work for the ministry any longer. And we wouldn't ask it of you, anyway. These men are dangerous."

He smiled down at her, lifting her hand and lacing his fingers through hers. He threw a handful of coins onto the table and pushed his chair in, reaching an arm towards Malfoy. "Well come on then, I know a good wizarding hotel you can spend the night in. They have a nice bar and comfortable beds."

Malfoy was staring at their clasped hands, his trademark smirk twisting his face. Hermione fought the urge to shake her hand free, and when Malfoy's eyes met hers she stared back at him defiantly. He glared at her for a breath and then nodded slightly, his hand reaching out to grip Jakob's forearm. The pull of Apparition started low in her gut and she fought against the nausea as they whirled away.

**Hotell Søvnig Heks, Gamle Stavanger, Stavanger**

"What do you mean there's only one room left?" Hermione's voice was raised to a shout, trying to carry over the raucous noise of the Quidditch fans in the hotel bar. The wizard behind the desk looked suitably apologetic, but firm as he shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

"Madam, it's only by luck that we have a room at all! We had a last minute cancellation not minutes ago and with the Quidditch match tomorrow every hotel in town is full to bursting."

Beside her, Malfoy smirked at her discomfort and frustration. He slid a handful of Galleons across the desk and waited as the desk clerk waved his wand in a quick money-changing charm.

Malfoy nudged Hermione with his hip when he noticed her mouth open to protest and she shut it with a snap. "Relax, Granger. I'll let you have the bed."

Hermione huffed, turning away from the desk and crossing her arms over her chest. Jakob had Apparrated them to this hotel and taken his leave, giving her a hard hug as he whispered to her to be careful. He had shook Malfoy's hand, given her a look and then he was gone. She glowered at the loud Quidditch fans and started as Malfoy's hand wrapped around her elbow.

"Come on Granger, let's go up to the room. I can't hear myself think down here."

Their shared room was small and cozy, with a large bed, chest of drawers and small sofa against the wall. Hermione sank onto the bed, drawing her legs up under her and pulling her beaded bag onto her lap. She rummaged around inside for a moment and then drew out their bags, magically shrunk to fit inside. Setting them on the bed, she flicked her wand at them and waited as they inflated to full size.

Malfoy snatched his up and set it on the chest, unzipping a side pocket and pulling out a bottle of Ogden's.

She rose from the bed, placing her own bag on the bedside table. She moved towards the window, pulling aside the rose-printed curtains to stare down at the lamp lit cobblestone streets of Gamle Stavanger. The hotel was located in a tiny wizarding district, circling a square. She could see that several of the other public houses and hotels were also full of shouting Quidditch fans, the lights from their common rooms pooling out onto the cobbles. She peered into the night, wondering which way was north towards the cave.

She drew away from the window, turning back towards the room. Her hands were wringing nervously in front of her as she paced, unsure what to do. She felt adrift, as if she should be working on something. Tomorrow they would go to the caves and possibly confront the Death Eaters, but tonight she felt anxious and agitated.

"Merlin, Granger, why don't you take a seat? Your pacing is going to drive me insane."

She shot him a glare. "Oh, fuck off, Malfoy."

He smirked, leaning back against the chest of drawers. "Big words from such a small kitten."

"This kitten has consistently done the work you're unable to do, Malfoy. You always make the mistake of underestimating me." Her voice was a hiss, her shoulders stiff with anger. He watched her silently and she felt the anger rising beyond her control.

"Not unable to do, Granger. I'm perfectly capable of doing the work, but why should I when I have others to do it for me?" He inspected his nails lazily, his smirk shadowing across his features.

Hermione saw red. _How dare he?_

She stalked towards him, until only a foot or so separated them. She could feel her anger sparking off her skin and knew her magic was steaming, causing the air around her to become hazy. Malfoy straightened, his eyes watching her warily.

"I am not your bloody servant, Malfoy. I am a capable witch who has every right to her magic. I was born to be a witch, my blood be damned! You move through life as if everyone is there to do your bidding, because being a pureblood sets you higher on some imagined hierarchy. Well, let me enlighten you; your kind _lost_. Death Eaters _lost_!" Her breath dragged through her chest like a hot wind and she realized that somehow her wand was in her hand and pointed at his chest. She blinked, unsure of herself and what was supposed to happen next.

Malfoy sagged minutely against the dresser, his face blank. She waited, but he didn't rise to meet her anger. She began to have a sinking feeling that she had misunderstood him again, that she had let her prejudice color her view. She didn't know what to say to him. He pushed a trembling hand through his hair and then knocked her wand away with the other.

He stepped away from her, his shoulders hunched. "My _kind_, Granger? Ten years later, after everything… is that still what you think of me?"

The words hung in the air around them, pressing Hermione into the carpet. She blinked at him, rooted to the spot.

He sighed. "I'm going down to the bar. I have a sudden need to not be able to hear myself think."

He slipped out of the door, shutting it behind him with a soft thud. The sound broke whatever spell had paralyzed her and she stumbled to the bed, folding into it until her head rested in her palms.

Hermione slipped between the groups of Quidditch fans crowding the hotel bar, smiling apologetically when she bumped into someone and waving off offers of drinks from several men. The noise level was a sharp roar of voices and she understood what Malfoy had said about not being able to hear himself think.

On the far side of the room she saw a familiar shock of blond hair and began to maneuver herself through the crowd. As she approached, she saw that Malfoy sat hunched in a booth, his elbows resting on the table as he stared into another glass of firewhiskey. She caught the sleeve of a passing barmaid, requesting a pint and pointing to the booth where Malfoy sat. The witch nodded and moved past as Hermione approached the table.

She slid into the booth seat across from him, folding her arms on the table. She watched him silently for a moment, but he didn't look up. She grimaced. _Eat your crow, Hermione_.

"Look, Malfoy… I'm sorry." She had to practically shout to be heard over the noise in the bar and she grimaced in frustration. She flicked her wand and sighed in relief as the muffling charm settled over them, reducing the noise level to a low drone. She cleared her throat and repeated herself, her voice warm.

Malfoy looked up at her, his expression blank. She smiled softly at him, shifting nervously in her seat. "I… have a hard time reconciling this version of you with the boy you were in the War. And I know that isn't fair. You are right; your mother and you have gone to great lengths to make up for your poor choices and it isn't my place to take that away from you. I have had a… hard time moving away from the War. It still feels very close, sometimes."

She ducked her head for a moment, letting her curls fall in front of her face as she took a shuddering breath. When she looked back up, pushing her hair away from her eyes, he was watching her.

"Gods, Granger, I know I was a bastard to you in school. I know what I did in the War. I have to live with it every day - will have to live with it until I die. No, wait, let me finish." He held up an elegant hand to stop her protestations, his shoulders straightening as he spoke. "My father was an evil man and my mother was a snob. I was raised in a bubble of pureblood ideology and had no chance; once the Dark Lord returned my die was cast. It wasn't until I watched them torture a classmate on the floor of my childhood home that I began to see that the road I had been set on was the wrong road. That everything I had been taught to believe in was a lie."

He scrubbed at his face with his hands and Hermione had the sudden urge to reach for him. She clenched her fists instead, watching as he took a fortifying drink of his firewhiskey. "Merlin, Granger, I will hear your screams until I die. I just stood there. I'm so sorry." His voice was a ragged thread and it made the tears instantly pool in her eyes.

"Malfoy. You were a child. What could you have done?"

He sucked in a breath and choked out a laugh. "Nothing. I could do nothing. But that doesn't mean it doesn't haunt me."

"You had already took such a great risk not identifying us when the Snatchers brought us in."

His fist slammed down on the table and Hermione jumped. "I was a coward! Don't make that out to be some act of heroism. Granger… I was so scared."

She did reach for him then, curling her hands around his fist and holding on when he tried to jerk it back to his chest. "Bravery doesn't mean you aren't also fucking terrified, Malfoy. You risked everything when you didn't identify Harry, and being afraid doesn't negate that."

He hummed, slipping his fist out from under her hands. He gave her fingers a slight squeeze, before bringing his hand to his lap. He cleared his throat, glancing around the bar for a moment. Hermione could see the sheen of his eyes and gave him time to compose himself.

The barmaid returned and set her pint on the table. Hermione raised the glass to her lips and took several large drinks, wiping her hand across her mouth as she lowered the glass. She took a deep breath, willing the alcohol to calm her nerves as she waited for Malfoy to look at her.

"Do you… are there any lingering effects of the torture?" His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were burning in the hazy darkness of the pub.

She grimaced, shifting awkwardly in her seat. She kept her arms outstretched on the table, pushing up her left sleeve with her right hand. The 'mudblood' scar was a florid red against her lightly tanned skin. She dragged the pad of her thumb over the scar tissue. Malfoy sucked in a ragged breath and she glanced up at him with a sad smile.

"It will never fully heal, they tell me. Something about the dark magic in her wand. It doesn't hurt, but it itches sometimes. Compared to the other things, it's really pretty minor."

Malfoy choked on his sip of firewhiskey. "Pretty minor? Gods, Granger. She was a sadistic, vile woman who took pleasure in carving you up. Pretty minor, indeed. And what other things?"

Hermione tapped a finger against the tabletop, her eyes staring at the scar but not seeing it. "The shockwaves of the _Crucio_ lasted for about four years. They would come at times of high stress or anxiety, which was pretty damn near always at that point. Muggles call what we all experienced after the War post traumatic stress disorder. PTSD. I was a fucking mess. And the nightmares. I think they were the worst of all."

She shuddered, her eyes closing as she remembered waking up with a throat raw from screaming. The smell of her sweat soaked sheets and the crescent moon wounds in her palms where her nails had dug into her flesh. "I was a zombie, doped up on Dreamless Sleep and anxiety potions. And then I met Lars. He knew who I was, knew my reputation from school and what I had done to help Harry and the Order during the War. He took me under his wing and taught me how to research, _really_ research. And I accompanied him on missions. It was like something opened up inside me and I found my place in the world. I got off the potions, the shockwaves tapered off and the nightmares… well, I still have them from time to time but they are manageable."

Malfoy's eyes were molten silver as he stared at her, his expression hard. "I know about nightmares, Granger. I hear you screaming in my sleep. I hear Professor Burbage begging for her life. I hear _him_, calling for that fucking snake. I still wake up screaming sometimes."

Hermione smiled at him, her eyes warm. She wanted to reach across the table and take his hand again, but she didn't. She couldn't. Instead, she tried to convey her understanding with her eyes and her words. "That is nothing to be ashamed of, Malfoy. We all wake up screaming, sometimes."

They stared across the table at each other for several breaths, feeling the weight of their childhoods and the things they had seen pressing them into the vinyl of the booth. Hermione blinked and took a breath, shaking herself out of her daze. She shifted in her seat, digging a handful of coins from her bag.

"I need another drink. What's your poison, Malfoy?" She smirked at him as she brushed an errant curl away from her eyes. He lifted his glass of firewhiskey. "Ogden's? Got it. I'll be right back."

She slid out of the booth and brushed at her trousers. She moved off towards the bar, gulping for air as she moved away from him. As she pressed a hand to her chest, she felt her heartbeat even out into a steady rhythm. After ordering their drinks, she turned to look back at their booth and caught Malfoy's gaze. He was staring at her, his eyes bright with some unnamed emotion, and she wondered if it was shame, or understanding, or something else entirely.


	7. Chapter 6

**April 26, 2008, ****Hotell Søvnig Heks, Gamle Stavanger, Stavanger**

Draco fought his way up from the pull of a deep, dreamless slumber. The early morning sun crept through the curtains and he could smell coffee brewing in the hotel kitchen. He stretched, feeling languid until his hand hit against something soft and unmoving. He turned his head and sucked in a breath; Granger lay on her back beside him, the bedsheets tangled around her tanned legs. He tracked the pathway of exposed skin to the hem of her pink pajama shorts, his eyes roving over her torso and neck until he took in the unguarded expression on her face. Her head was turned towards him, her curls spread out on the pillow. She was breathing deep and slow, her chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm.

He pressed his head back into his pillow with a suppressed groan. How had they ended up in the bed together? He cast his thoughts back to the night before and winced at a dull stab of pain behind his eyelids. _Oh yes, that's right. _There had been many glasses of firewhiskey involved. That would explain it.

He turned his gaze back to the witch beside him, watching her sleep and thinking back to their conversation in the hotel bar. She had apologized and he had said too much, undone by her honesty and the warmth of her brown eyes. When she returned with their drinks, they had gone over what they had learned from Jakob Berg. Draco had fire-called Theo from the lobby Floo to see if he could start any research on his end. Back in the booth with Granger, they had sat in companionable silence nursing their drinks until the bar had closed. He half remembered stumbling up to the room, teasing her when she tripped over the corridor carpet and then falling face first into the bed fully clothed.

He cast his gaze down his body and smirked; well, at least he knew that nothing untoward had happened between them. Though obviously Granger had been a bit more able than he had been; she was wearing those tiny pajama shorts and an equally small vest top. As he admired the thin scraps of fabric, he wondered what had made her decide to crawl into the bed beside him. Before he could ruminate on that question further, the room was suddenly bathed in a violently green glow.

Draco went rigid, thinking immediately of the _Avada Kedavra _curse. His heart stuttered until he heard someone across the room clear his throat. Propping himself up on his elbows, he glared at Theo's disembodied head where it floated in the fireplace.

"Good morning, sunshine!" Theo's face was suffused with evil glee as he took in the sight before him. His eyebrows rose into his dark hair as his gaze slid along Granger's bare legs. Draco dropped back onto the pillow, his eyes rolling to the back of his skull. _Just perfect_.

"For fuck's sake, Nott, what time is it?" Draco's voice was hangover-rough and beside him, Granger jumped. He glanced at her and watched as she disentangled her arm from the bedsheet and scrubbed at her face. Her eyes popped open and she took a moment to orientate herself. Her eyes met Draco's and he steeled himself for her outraged response at sharing a bed, but she just watched him quietly.

"It is the breaking of the day, sunshine," Theo quipped, his expression triumphant as he watched the awkward tension on the bed. "You lie-a-beds should really think about all the time you are wasting, just lying there. In bed. _Together_."

Draco growled and sat up, swinging his long legs over the side of the bed. He stretched his arms out in front of him, waiting for the _pop_ of his back. Rolling his neck, he threw a glare towards the fireplace.

"Out with it, Nott. What have you got for us?"

"Can I have a bit longer to savor the awkward tension I am sensing?" Theo smirked maliciously, his eyes dancing as he continued to stare at them. "This is better than those Muggle teevee shows you showed me, Hermione." He chuckled as Granger stuck two fingers in the air as she stretched. She pushed herself up against the pillows and unwound the bedsheets from her legs, waving an impatient hand towards the fireplace.

"Come on Theo, what did you find out? Can MacNair successfully make copies of the First Chains?"

Theo looked down, as if reading a parchment on a table in front of him, though the green flames obscured it from Draco and Granger's view. His brow furrowed and he glanced back up at them, his expression now worried.

"Normally I would say no, Hermione, but there is something about this that gives me pause. The First Chains are Dwarven made, forged in the fires of Nidavellir using magic specific to the race of Dwarves. No wizard, no matter how dark, could replicate them. A wizard blacksmith might be able to make casts based on MacNair's injuries, but they would never be imbued with the power of the originals."

Draco watched as Granger took in this information, her head slightly cocked as she listened to Theo. She took a breath and her hand spasmed against the bedsheets balled up beside her.

"What are you not saying, Theo?" she asked, her voice taut with apprehension.

Theo grinned at her, though his eyes remained worried. "No wizard could pull it off… but a dwarf? The dwarves are long-lived and have long collective memories. The forges they use are millennia old, so steeped in their magic that I wouldn't be surprised if MacNair actually pulled it off yesterday. If he was able to find a dwarf to make casts of his injuries, then I think we must assume that replicas of the chains have been produced."

"How in the hell would he have been able to find one so quickly?" Draco growled, feeling the anger burn off all traces of sleep.

Theo's head bobbed, as if he had shrugged. "One would have to assume that the dark wizards already had dwarven contacts," he mused. "If they have been searching for the chains, then it stands to reason they would reach out to the dwarves. Some of the old stories said the First Chains had traveled with a dwarven adventurer after they failed to bind Fenrir."

Granger nodded, her expression contemplative. "Yes, with Sindri. It's always been an assumption; there are records that place the extra length of Gleipnir with Sindri, so it could be possible for him to also have the First Chains. It would make sense for MacNair to be in touch with dwarves; Jakob did mention there were outcasts from the tribes who might work with Death Eaters."

Draco pushed a hand through his hair and rolled his shoulders. The anger swamped through his veins and he felt weighed down by frustration. He glanced back at Granger. She sat cross legged on the bed, her upper body leaned forward towards the fireplace as she watched Theo's head bob about in the green flames. Draco felt his gaze catch on the dusting of freckles along her shoulders and across her chest. He blinked, turning back to the fireplace.

"What will you do now?" Theo's voice was light, but Draco could hear the undercurrent of worry.

Granger glanced toward Draco, her face blank. When he wasn't forthcoming, she sniffed and shrugged. The strap of her vest top slid several inches down her shoulder and she hooked it back into place with a finger. "We follow the directions Jakob left us with to the Svarthola cave and see if there's anything there."

"I've got some basic information on Svarthola for you," Theo said, as if he had just remembered. An arm, in the vague orientation of where it should be in relation to his head, shot out of the flames. It tossed a rolled up parchment towards the bed and Draco leaned forwards and snatched it from the air.

"The map we found seems to indicate that the entrance to Vanaheimr is a black hole," Granger mused, as Draco unfurled the parchment. "I just hope we find the entrance before MacNair does. I don't like that the dark wizards seem to be several steps ahead of us."

"And if you encounter said dark wizards?" Theo watched Granger, his face set in his standard bored aristocrat mask, but his question was heavy with apprehension.

Granger shrugged. "We'll deal with that if it comes to it. Neither of us are helpless, are we, Malfoy?"

Draco didn't answer, his face betraying nothing of what he was feeling. Truth be told he was worried they would encounter MacNair and the other Death Eaters; he was a Slytherin through and through, and his self-preservation instinct was honed. But he had known what working with a Gryffindor would entail when he joined Granger on this madcap quest.

"I don't particularly enjoy the idea of you and Malfoy up against eight or so dark wizards, no matter how skilled you are, Hermione."

Granger waved an impatient hand towards Theo. "Please don't worry, if anything goes wrong, I promise we'll contact Harry and the Aurors. But I want to try to find the entrance to Vanaheimr before they do. If we can get our hands on Gleipnir before MacNair does…"

"Promise me you will contact Potter if there is trouble." Theo's mask had dropped and he stared intently at Granger, his eyes flicking to Draco to include him. "You promise me, Hermione, or I swear to Merlin I will end this call and go straight to Shacklebolt and tell him you are unnecessarily placing yourself in danger."

Granger rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in front of her in surrender. "I promise! I promise I'll let Harry know if we need help. In fact, can you owl him the location of the Svarthola caves, tell him that's where we'll be? If he doesn't hear from us in three days, then maybe he should start making his way to Norway."

Theo nodded sharply, his mask dropping back into place. His gaze flicked between the two sitting on the bed and he smirked. "Wish I could stick around and witness more of the awkwardness between you two, but I'd better sign off and send that owl." He chortled. "Take care of him, Hermione. Those posh hands are too soft for spelunking."

Granger giggled and Draco growled as Theo blew them a kiss, ending the fire call with an audible _pop_. Draco hauled himself to his feet, pressing a hand to his lower back. He glared balefully at Granger as she grinned at him, her eyebrows slightly raised. She sat on the bed, her curls haloeing her face and her skin glowing with health and energy, and he wanted to run as far away from the hotel room as he could. As far away from her and her bright eyes as humanly possible.

**Svarthola cave, Randaberg, Rogaland **

Draco wiped the palms of his hands against his trousers as they stepped off the bus. He stood on the pavement, glowering at the rolling green fields and canopies of trees that surrounded them. Beside him, Granger made an exasperated noise as she grabbed his upper arm, hauling him away from the bus as it roared away.

"Merlin, Malfoy, it was a fifteen minute bus ride with three other passengers. It's not like I pushed you into a locked room with a crowd of Muggles."

He sneered at her, refusing to meet her eyes. He could admit to himself that he was moderately embarrassed by his nervousness around Muggles; the beliefs of his childhood may have disappeared, but he still felt a lingering unease when he was in the Muggle world.

_Plus, moving vehicles scare the shit out of me._

"How can you be in such a foul mood in such a beautiful place?" Granger threw her arms out in front of her, encompassing the fields and the trees and the vista before them. Down a rolling incline lay the bay of Visteviga, glittering in the midday sun. White-washed houses with black roofs dotted the landscape, surrounded by paddocks and the white dots of sheep grazing in the fields.

A gentle breeze blew around them, lifting Granger's curls off her back and whipping them into her face. She laughed, catching the curls with her fingers and pulling her hair back. She squinted into the sun, a smile spreading across her face. Draco watched her from the corner of his eye, a catch in his throat at the sight of her basking in the sunlight. She laughed again and he growled.

"Berg said the cave sight was just up the road from the bus stop, so let's get moving Granger," he growled as he began to walk along the road-way, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers. Behind him, he heard Granger huff indignantly before scurrying to catch up with his long strides.

They walked in silence for several minutes before rounding a curve in the road. Granger's hand shot out, catching his upper arm again as she dragged him to a stop. She pointed up an incline.

"There! There's the cave."

A rocky outcropping sat just above them, the large stone formations looking like a set of child's building blocks haphazardly stacked. In the center of the grouping of stone was an opening. Vines and other hardy plants hung from the stone shelves, swaying in the breeze. Draco let his gaze sweep over the cave site and then stiffened. Three dark robed figures were striding towards the cave entrance, their backs to Draco and Granger.

It was his turn to grip her upper arm and pull her back, pressing them both behind a low stacked stone wall at the side of the road. They crouched, peering over the stones, and watched the Death Eaters approach the cave.

"The tall one is MacNair, I recognize that greasy hair." Granger's voice was a whisper, her body rigid beside his. He nodded, his gaze intent on the three men as they entered the cave. They passed into the dim light, their figures still visible as they moved deeper into the shadows.

"Granger, look at that cave; it's more like an indentation in the rock," Draco whispered, his eyes not leaving the three men. "I can see the back wall from here; I don't think it's even ten meters deep. There's no connecting chambers, no tunnels, nothing. This isn't much of a cave site."

She was silent for a moment, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip before she nodded. "The notes Theo sent over say that this cave was used as habitation as long as seven thousand years ago. It's the perfect little room to keep you warm and dry during a thunderstorm, but it doesn't look like Vanaheimr." Draco could hear the frustration in her voice.

"Then why is MacNair looking so confident? He's walking into that miniscule cave as if it's the common room of the Leaky, as if he hasn't a care in the world." Draco's eyes were glued on the back of the Death Eater, his anger bubbling just below the surface. Above them, MacNair drew his wand with a flourish. Granger's small hand gripped his knee as she steadied herself beside him, her fingers flexing against the fabric of his trousers.

As they watched, the three Death Eaters moved to the back wall of the cave. MacNair swept a hand along the wall, as if searching for something by touch. He stopped, turning his body towards his companions; Draco and Granger ducked behind their wall. MacNair didn't notice them, his focus on the other two Death Eaters. Their mouths moved as they spoke, but no matter how hard Draco strained to hear their words they were too far away. Suddenly, MacNair faced the stone wall of the cave, bringing his wand up and placing the tip inside a crevice. There was a flash of light and then -

"_Merlin,_ Malfoy! They're walking through the fucking wall!" Granger hissed, her fingers clenching at his knee. He shifted his weight beside her and caught her by the upper arm as she tipped forward. He waited until all three men had disappeared into the stone wall and then hauled her up, dusting at his trousers.

"Come on Granger," he growled, stalking up the hill towards the cave. She scrambled behind him, hurrying until she drew up to his side. Her breath came in quick gasps and he could feel the excitement rolling off her in waves.

At the entrance, Draco turned and scanned the area. His gaze swept over the hill and the road below as Granger scurried inside, her hands already outstretched towards the wall. Convinced that they were alone, he ducked into shadow of the cave and watched as she slid her palms across the stone.

"It looked like MacNair stuck his wand _into_ something, a fissure perhaps? Or an indention in the rock?"

"Agreed," Draco confirmed, his eyes roaming over the stone. "Look for a carved opening or some natural occurrence. And the light, he must have cast a spell?"

Granger hummed in agreement, her fingers dancing across the stone. Her hair had come loose from her low-slung ponytail and curls were sticking to her cheeks. She huffed a breath, lifting one hand away from the wall to push at the strands distractedly. As one palm lifted away, the other slid several inches to the right and then stopped. Granger stilled, her body going rigid.

"There's something here. Under my palm. Give me some light, will you?"

Draco pulled his wand and cast a quick _Lumos_, holding the tip of his wand close to the wall. Granger slowly moved her hand to the side and sucked in a breath. Her other hand came up and she traced faint markings on the stone with a gentle finger.

"They're _runes_, Malfoy," she breathed. "Centered around this little hole, like a small shelf carved into the rock. It's different from anything else on the wall, I can feel the tool marks. This opening and the runes are definitely not natural."

"Can you translate?"

"Give me a minute." She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, pressing her teeth into the flesh as she stared at the almost-invisible lines in the stone. Draco held his wand steady as he waited, his eyes trained on her face. She blinked, once, twice, and then let her breath out in a heavy sigh.

"I think… I think it says '_let the light in_.'"

"Let the light in." His voice was deadpan, his expression blank. She threw a glance to his face and grimaced.

"Roughly. But what does it mean?" Her voice was halfway to a whine, her eyes wide as she stared at the runes. She cocked her head, her gaze sliding to the point of Draco's wand where it still hovered at eye level beside her. She stared at the light for a moment, her brow furrowing.

"Surely it can't be that simple," she murmured, pulling her own wand from her holster. She pointed it at the wall, sticking the tip into the carved indention. Her hand was trembling and her breath rattled as she inhaled. Draco moved closer, his free hand reaching until he could settle it on her shoulder. She stilled as he pressed gently down, willing her to calm herself.

Granger sucked in a breath and then closed her eyes, whispering a quiet _Lumos. _The light from her wand flashed around them and then subsided as Granger stumbled forward, her wand and hand disappearing into the stone. She gave a crow of triumph and reached up to grasp his hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him, her face suffused with glee and anticipation.

"Come on, Malfoy," she whispered, her eyes bright as she tugged him along behind her and into the wall.


	8. Chapter 7

**April 26, 2008, Vanaheimr**

There was a pressing sensation as they passed through the wall, a heavy weight that pushed all breath from their bodies and pulsed the blood in their veins. Hermione gasped as they pushed through, sucking in a deep breath and doubling over with the effort. She pressed her palms against her thighs and focused on filling her lungs. Malfoy stood beside her, his hand against his chest and his expression strained.

"Fuck, Granger. That was terrible." His voice was rough and he cleared his throat, grimacing.

Hermione chuckled, the laugh grating through her throat. She coughed once and then straightened, tugging at her linen shirt. She swept her palms across her sides and hips, feeling the reassuring lumps of her wand holster and beaded bag. Rolling her shoulders, she threw a grin at Malfoy.

"Bit of an understatement," she quipped as she rotated in place, her eyes taking in the small chamber.

The stone walls were worn smooth and curved gently into a dome several meters above their heads. Behind them was a rippled expanse of wall that shifted slightly as Hermione tried to look at it. She guessed that was the way they had entered, and would likely be the way they would leave. On the opposite side of the chamber were eight tunnel entrances, all of them glowing with a dim, weak light. Malfoy had moved towards the tunnels, his posture cautious as he paced along the length of the wall.

"This light is eerie," he murmured, his voice carrying in the cavernous space. "Where does it come from?"

"I would guess it's whatever is left over from the magic that once lit this place," Hermione answered, moving to his side. He glanced over his shoulder at her, his expression blank. She shrugged and gestured towards the tunnels. He moved away from her and Hermione stayed rooted where she stood.

"There are faint markings here, Granger." Malfoy swept a hand across the wall between two tunnels, his fingers ghosting along faint lines. "They look like runes, but are so degraded I don't think we're going to be able to translate."

Hermione moved forwards, her curiosity piqued by the faint markings Malfoy traced. As she peered at the stone, he shifted beside her.

"Did you hear that?" he whispered, his body rigid with sudden tension.

Hermione stood motionless, straining to listen in the vast silence of the caverns. After a moment, she heard the distant whispers of voices. They rumbled one over the other, too far away and too faint to decipher. But she could definitely detect the cadence of speech and she turned to look up at Malfoy.

"It must be the Death Eaters. They've moved down a tunnel… this one, I think." Hermione motioned towards the tunnel opening to their left.

Malfoy nodded, his face tense as he strained to hear. "I can't make out what they're saying, but they sound angry. Like they're arguing. Maybe they're lost?"

Hermione huffed a breath, her fingers scrabbling at her beaded bag. "Merlin, Malfoy, the blasted map!"

She pulled her bag from where it hung at her waist, and stuck her arm into it. She cast a non-verbal summoning spell and felt the scroll hit her palm. Handing it to Malfoy, she stuck her arm back in. As he unrolled the map, she let her fingers glide reassuringly along the sinuous length of Loeding before closing the bag.

"They must not have a map, Malfoy," she breathed, her eyes bright as she watched him. "We might actually have a chance to get ahead of them."

His mouth was set in a tense line as his eyes tracked over the map, taking in the amorphous shapes of the cave chambers. Hermione waited, intrigued by his intensity and his surefooted perusal of the scroll.

"We're heading for the Star Chamber, right?" His voice was distant, as if he spoke aloud without any need for an answer. Hermione kept quiet.

Suddenly he looked up, his eyes moving over the tunnel entrances and back to the scrolls. "That one. That's where we need to go, Granger." He pointed to an entrance three tunnels away from them.

She smiled at him, her eyes bright. "Then let's go."

His eyes snapped to her face, surprise flitting across his patrician features. He obviously had expected her to object or at least double check his interpretation. She continued to smile at him expectantly and he grunted, rolling the scroll back up and slipping it into his waist pack. Patting his wand holster absentmindedly, he nodded perfunctorily before moving towards the entrance.

"So they've taken the wrong tunnel," Hermione chuckled. As they moved into the tunnel, Malfoy glanced back at her.

"Looks like it. Though we need to always be on guard - it looks like tunnels criss-cross and overlap throughout the entire cave system. They can still make it to the Star Chamber from where they are, though it looks like a much longer and convoluted way. Our paths could cross at any number of points, so we need to be careful."

The tunnel was a long, featureless corridor until suddenly it wasn't, opening up into a vast chamber. Hermione choked on a gasp, her eyes wide as they stepped into the cavernous space. The walls were painted with a riot of flowers and vines, so lifelike that it almost felt as if they were in the middle of some ancient forest. The same weak light illuminated the space enough to see that the colors were still bright and the artistic skill impressive. Across the chamber, long wooden tables were surrounded by benches and chairs. Several cupboards, carved and inlaid, sat against far walls. All of the furniture was coated with a heavy layer of dust.

As they moved into the space, their footfalls sent dust swirling around them in glittering clouds.

"I think this must have been some kind of dining hall," Hermione whispered, reverent in the silent space. She waved a hand towards a small doorway on a far wall. "I bet that leads to the kitchens."

Malfoy pulled the map from his belt and unrolled it, holding it in front of him. "You're right, Granger. This chamber is labeled 'Great Hall'... and there is a connecting corridor to the kitchens. But we're heading that way." He waved a hand towards another doorway opposite the kitchens.

Hermione nodded, falling into step beside him as they crossed the Great Hall. Her eyes were wide as they took in each detail of the beautiful space and after a few moments, she could feel Malfoy's gaze on her face. She threw him a questioning glance and he chuckled.

"What are you thinking, Granger?"

She blushed, her mouth curving up into a grin. "I was just wondering if there might be a library somewhere down here."

He laughed quietly, his face suffused with mirth. "Of course you were. If we make it out of here alive, you can come back here on holiday and check."

xx

They walked for hours, passing through cavern after cavern in the dim, weird light. Hermione's lungs burned with the long trek and the tonnes of dust she had inhaled as they moved through the rooms. But despite the ache in her legs, her mind buzzed with anticipation and awe.

Each chamber was decorated with brilliantly colored wall paintings and filled with the furniture and dressings one would expect in a vibrant, wealthy community. As they moved through the cave system, she mentally catalogued each room and wondered why such a place had ever been abandoned.

Each time they came across an intersection of chambers, Malfoy had them stop and listen for any signs of the dark wizards. Hermione stood in the curved entrances, in the shadow of the looming walls, and strained to hear the slightest noise in the cavernous silence. So far there had been no trace of the other party, and she could see that Malfoy was growing more tense as time passed. He didn't like that they had no idea where on the map the Death Eaters were and she could see that he expected them to jump out at them at any moment.

They passed from a large chamber that had once been a workshop of some sort into a long corridor. The walls were bare of the lavish decorations Hermione's eyes had become accustomed to, and the stark coldness of the corridor reminded her of how far below the surface they must be. She had excavated a hundred underground sites, but something about this place felt different.

She shivered, tugging at her shirt, and wondered if she should get her jacket from her beaded bag. She was halfway to loosening the bag from her belt when Malfoy stopped abruptly in front of her, causing Hermione to run straight into his back. She huffed an embarrassed breath, rubbing her face as he turned to glare down at her.

"Sorry," she muttered, but cut herself off as he raised a stiff hand. He turned away from her, his shoulder tense. He waved his hand at her, motioning for her to move to the wall of the corridor.

They pressed themselves against the stone and Hermione could hear nothing but the pounding of her heart in her ears. As they stood in silence, she willed herself to calm and as her breathing quieted she noticed what must have set Malfoy off. A tinny, repetitive sound echoed faintly ahead of them. It was a steady staccato rhythm and Hermione cocked her head as she listened.

"Malfoy, I think it's something dripping," she breathed quietly. Beside her, he nodded and motioned for her to follow him as he crept along the corridor.

They rounded a gentle curve and Hermione gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle any sound. Ahead of them, the corridor opened up in a vast cavern. The walls glittered and shone, the eerie light that illuminated the entire complex refracting and reflecting off of a million crystalline surfaces. Hermione gaped in wonder, spinning in place as she took in the crystal-studded walls and ceiling. She had never seen anything so beautiful in all of her life.

Further inside the chamber was a pool of water, placid and opaque in the dim light. Rainbows reflected from the crystals shimmered across the surface. In the center of the pool was a jagged outcropping of rock that rose above the level of the water, levelling off into a small plateau. A particularly large crystalline stalactite hung suspended above the natural altar, the light playing across it's faces. Moisture from the water in the chamber clung to the crystals and a steady drip struck the altar, creating the rhythmic staccato they had noticed earlier.

Malfoy moved further into the chamber until he reached the edge of the pool. He waited until Hermione moved beside him and turned to glance at her. He waited expectantly and she rolled her shoulders, casting her gaze once more the space.

"The legends say that the First Chains must be linked on the altar in the Star Chamber." Her voice was soft in the cavernous space and still it echoed slightly, bouncing gently against the studded walls. Malfoy watched her silently, his face expressionless. "Do you still have Dromi?"

He shifted beside her, his lips quirking slightly into his familiar smirk. "You never asked for it once we arrived in Norway. I kept waiting for you to demand I hand it over, but you never did."

She grinned back at him, shrugging slightly as he dug in his waist pouch. "I was so intent on researching when we arrived that I forgot," she admitted, her expression sheepish. "And by the time I remembered… well, I figured you would keep it safe."

He glanced up at her words and regarded her with a level, curious stare. She flushed slightly under his gaze and he tracked the warming of her skin for a moment before sliding the length of chain from his pouch. He dangled it from his fingers, letting it sway softly between them.

"Here it is." His voice was soft in the silence and for some reason Hermione felt a connecting tug in her chest. She let her eyes move from the chain to his face and they stood motionless for a moment, caught in each other's stare.

Hermione was the first to break the stare, shaking herself slightly as she patted her own bag reassuringly. She cleared her throat softly, steadying herself as she cast her gaze across the pool towards the altar.

"We need to get to the altar," she murmured, her eyes sliding to the still water. "I hope you're not afraid to get wet, Malfoy."

He snorted softly beside her, his clothing rustling as he stowed Dromi back into his pouch. "I'm not going to melt, if that's what you're worried about Granger."

She smirked as she bent to untie her boots, slipping them off and casting a quick shrinking charm on them so they could be stowed in her bag. She motioned to Malfoy's boots and he quickly unlaced his own, handing them to her. They both slipped their socks off, shoving them into their belts.

"I wonder how deep it is?" Hermione's brow furrowed as she regarded the placid water.

"Something tells me there's no reason to roll up our trouser legs. I think we're going to get soaked."

She wrinkled her nose at the thought and heaved a great sigh. "Well, there's no turning back now. Ready when you are."

Malfoy moved forward, Hermione a step behind. The water was freezing, and she shuddered at the contact. They waded out into the pool, their trousers soaking up the water and clinging to their legs. The pool remained opaque around them, their movement through the water only sending small wavelets rippling away from them in an otherwise glassy surface. Halfway to the altar the depth seemed to level off, the water licking at the tops of Hermione's thighs. She sent up a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that it wouldn't get any deeper as they pushed towards the altar.

Scrambling up onto the rock, they shook the excess water from their trousers. Malfoy slid his pouch open and retrieved Dromi as Hermione untied her own beaded bag and cast a quick summoning charm. Loeding slid into her palm and she held it aloft, her eyes flitting across the small expanse of stone centered under the giant crystal.

"They must link somehow, probably there," she said, pointing to the rock. She moved forward and laid Loeding out on the stone, straightening the sinuous link with careful fingers. Malfoy moved beside her and spread Dromi out in imitation of Loeding, letting the ends rest several inches from each other.

Hermione sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, worrying it with her teeth. She took a cleansing breath and steadied herself. This is what she _did. _She had created an entire career around solving puzzles just like this one. Straightening her shoulders, she took command.

"Malfoy, take hold of Dromi - yes, there." She gripped Loeding between her fingers. "The legends say 'upon the altar,' so let's try to keep the lengths touching the stone. Now, when I say to, touch the end of Dromi to my end of Loeding. Just a gentle contact. And we'll go from there."

He nodded, his eyes locked on hers. She had half expected him to push back, but he seemed fine with taking her orders in this. She felt a surge of confidence, as if her feet steadied beneath her. She glanced down at the chains.

"Ok… now."

They moved the chains together, the end links touching with an imperceptible _clink_. Hermione sucked in a breath as a glow sparked where the chains touched, growing in size and intensity as they watched. The light burned, swallowing the chains and their hands and she had a moment of panic as it expanded. Her eyes watered and she squeezed them shut, the brightness sending sparks across the backs of her eyelids. She heard Malfoy hiss across from her and suddenly she felt his fingers wrap around the arm that wasn't holding the chain.

"Granger!" His voice was strained, but steady.

She let the contact and the sound of her name settle her nerves and she pulled her arm from his hand, catching his fingers with hers. She laced their hands together and they waited, hoping the light wouldn't burn forever. Suddenly, it darkened to the dim, eerie light that had lit their entire trek through the caverns. Hermione cautiously opened her eyes. The chains were still touching where they had connected, but beyond them something was happening in the pool.

"Malfoy," she hissed, her eyes widening. "Look!"

They watched as ripples appeared on the surface of the water, until there was a spot just off the altar that was churning. A grinding sound filled the cavern, causing water droplets to rain down from the moist walls. The dim light reflected off the crystals and moving droplets, sending rainbows sparking across the water. Hermione felt Malfoy's hand spasm against hers and she gasped as a stone casket, several feet long, broke the surface of the water. The grinding noise died away and the water stilled.

"Oh Merlin, Lars was right," she hissed, a frayed breath in the silence. "It was here all the time."

Hermione slid her hand from Malfoy's and scrambled down the side of the altar stone, until she could stand over the casket. She heard Malfoy slide down beside her as she reached towards the lid of the casket. Her hands paused above the stone and she took a ragged, cleansing breath. She felt the familiar weight of anticipation sink through her, leaving behind a buzzing sense of danger and excitement. She wiggled her fingers slightly, steadying herself. Lowering her hands to the stone, she gently felt along the seam of the lid until she could get purchase. Casting a glance to Malfoy, she found him watching her face. His lips quirked slightly and he nodded, his eyes bright with excitement and something else. Hermione felt her cheeks warm under his gaze and she moved her attention back to the casket. Taking a deep breath, she lifted the lid.

In the void of the casket lay a chain. It was several feet long, coiled around itself in a sinuous spiral. The links were small, about the size of Hermione's pinky nail, and she knew that it would be as supple as a silk ribbon. It was even smaller and daintier than the First Chains, so finely crafted that even without the power radiating from it's links it would be an expensive object. But it was clearly not just a fancy chain; she could feel the power pulsing from it, had to steady herself against the onslaught of pure Magic that radiated from the short length of chain. Beside her, she could sense Malfoy's tension.

"Merlin's balls, Granger. What _is_ that?"

"That is Gleipnir," she breathed, setting the casket lid to the side. "Or, it's an extra length of Gleipnir. The chain that binds Fenrir the Wolf."

"So you say," he said, his eyes riveted to the chain. "And judging by how much my magic wants to flee from it, I believe you. I don't think I've ever felt a more powerful object, and I lived in a manor full of Dark artifacts my entire life."

Hermione chuckled, her hands fumbling at the ties of her beaded bag. She cast a quick summoning charm and slid a red silk pouch from the bag. "I don't think it's Dark Magic that we're feeling, Malfoy. It's an object of the Gods, remember? Deities aren't Dark or Light… they just _are_."

"As you say, Granger. What's that?"

Hermione slid the silk pouch open, holding it in her left hand. "It's a dampening bag. It will quell the magical signature of whatever is inside it, keeping the object from being detected and protecting those around it from surges."

Malfoy grunted his approval as he watched Hermione reach for Gleipnir. Her hand hovered over the chain for a moment and then she slid her fingers underneath the links, lifting it gently from the casket. As she held it aloft, she let out a ragged breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding.

Letting the chain slide into the silk pouch, she tightened the strings until it closed. Suddenly the onslaught of magic they had been feeling ceased and they both sighed in relief. Hermione slipped the dampening bag into her belt pouch, unsure if she wanted it inside the extension charm of her beaded bag. She wasn't sure how that powerful a magical object would react once contained within both a dampening bag and a charm.

Straightening, she cast her gaze back across the pool to the entrance into the Star Chamber. She grimaced, catching Malfoy's eye. "Back into the water and then we can cast some blessed drying charms."

He grinned back at her, hauling himself up from the crouch he had settled into beside the casket. "And then?"

"And then we try to get the hell out of here without running into those dark wizards," she breathed, her eyes focused on the cavern entrance. "We get the hell out of here and we get back to London, so we can secure this thing. Malfoy -" She broke off, her gaze returning to his face.

He watched her, his expression concerned. "What is it, Granger?"

"You felt how powerful Gleipnir is, how much magic it contains. Imagine… imagine if MacNair had access to that much power. Imagine if Death Eaters held that caliber of binding magic in their hands."

Malfoy broke his gaze and looked toward the entrance, his hand coming up to card through his hair. He swallowed, his shoulders tense. Hermione watched as emotions flowed across his patrician features, his jaw clenching. His entire body was rigid as he turned his attention back to her, his eyes piercing.

"We cannot let them get it, Granger. Whatever happens, they cannot be allowed to have it."

She stared up at him for a moment, caught in the intensity of his conviction. She saw then, perhaps for the first time, that Draco Malfoy was no Death Eater. She could hear the fear in his voice and wondered that he didn't try to hide it from her. She was glad he didn't. She nodded, breaking her gaze. Squaring her shoulders, she turned towards the water. They could do this. They had to.


	9. Chapter 8

**April 26, 2008, Vanaheimr**

Hermione stumbled on an uneven patch of stone and caught herself, sucking in a breath as she tried to shake the lethargy from her mind. They had been walking for hours. Malfoy had insisted on taking an alternate route, one which he thought would be well out of the way of the Death Eaters. At first, the new chambers and caverns had been interesting, but for the past few hours they had run together into one long, exhausting stream of painted walls and dust-covered furniture. 

Hermione was bone-tired. Despite the dampening bag, Gleipnir sat heavy and pulsing at her waist. The potential for power and destruction that swung in her beaded bag made her anxiety levels crescendo, the panic nipping at her heels. There was a current of agitation sliding across her skin, and it felt alien to her, as if the emotion didn't belong in her body. She felt disconnected from it, but it was there. Every feeling was amplified somehow and it was making her head pound. All she wanted to do was curl up somewhere and sleep like the dead.

She stretched her arms overhead as they walked, peering around at the cavernous space they trudged through. It was massive, the walls triple the usual size to accommodate dozens of high loft spaces. Each loft was carved directly into the stone walls, the dark voids of their entrances stacked one on top of the other. Ladders had been chiselled into the rock, allowing access into the darkened ledges.

She threw a glance at Malfoy as he walked several feet ahead of her. His shoulders were hunched with exhaustion and his gait was erratic, as if he was having as hard a time as she was staying on his feet. After the initial excitement of finding Gleipnir in the Star Chamber, his mood had turned first introspective and then sullen. He hadn't spoken more than five words in the last three hours and Hermione was heartily sick of his changeable moods.

"What's this chamber labeled as?" Her voice was rough from hours of silence and exhaustion. She cleared her throat, feeling a coating of dust on her tongue.

Malfoy stumbled to a stop, his fingers plucking at his belt pouch. Pulling out the map scroll, he unrolled it and tracked their path with a finger.

"Translation charm says it's a sleeping chamber."

Hermione spun in place, taking in the patchwork of lofts spanning across the massive walls. She felt her mind whir into it's usual inquisitive pace and bit her lip as she thought. "They might have been assigned sleeping spaces by family groups or skill-sets. I bet each family or couple had a loft. I wonder how far back they go into the stone?"

Malfoy rolled his shoulders and then tucked the scroll back into his belt pouch. His face was set in a mask of irritation and exhaustion as he swept a gaze across the walls and then shrugged. "Take your pick, Granger. We need to rest, and at the back of one of those ledges is probably the safest place to be."

Hermione nodded eagerly, glad that he had suggested they stop. She hadn't wanted to be the one to make the request. If this had been one of her solo expeditions she would have made a point to rest hours ago, but she felt on-edge with Malfoy accompanying her. As if she needed to prove something to the aristocratic bastard. She spun again and then pointed. "There, let's go for that one. It's high, but not on the top level. It's not in any special place, just one of dozens."

Malfoy grunted and waved a hand towards the ladder. Hermione began to climb, surprised at how well the carved handholds were positioned into the wall and how easy it was to ascend.

"I bet the old and infirm, or families with young children had the bottom level of ledges. A quick leg up from someone would be enough to get them in." She spoke over her shoulder as they climbed and she heard Malfoy's answering derisive snort. She grimaced at his taciturnity. His irritation confused her, she had thought they had been working together rather well all things considered. But ever since their talk the night before, he had swung from one extreme to the other and it was doing her head in.

Hauling herself onto the ledge, she rolled forward and rose, dusting at her trousers. Pulling out her wand, she cast a whispered _Lumos_ and moved forward into the space. It was empty, except for the ubiquitous dust. The carved ledge went back some ten meters, a large enough space for a small family or several people to sleep comfortably.

"They did most of their living communally, so these spaces would have been purely for sleeping I suppose. I wonder what they slept on? Bedrolls or bunks? The other furniture has survived well, so I would assume if it had been something built of wood that it would still be here." She rambled on as she walked the length of the space, her quiet voice muffled in the enclosed gloom. She glanced back at Malfoy and caught the tail end of an eye roll. She glared at him before plopping down against the back wall, crossing her legs beneath her.

Unhooking her beaded bag from her belt, she cast a quiet summoning spell and felt one of the wizarding lights hit her palm. Removing it from the bag, she tapped it a few times with her wand until it gave off a dull, dim glow; just enough to light the back of the loft space but not enough to spread out where passing dark wizards would see it. She placed it on the ground, and stuck her hand back in her bag. Summoning the magically shrunken bedrolls, she pulled them out and set them next to her.

"Can you enlarge them while I get the food?"

Malfoy grunted in response, but he pulled his wand from his holster and flicked it towards the bedrolls. Hermione grumbled under her breath, her exhaustion making her patience with his surliness almost non-existent. She quickly summoned the food bag she had packed in the Stavanger hotel. Spreading a cloth out on the ground, she unceremoniously dumped the sandwiches and gestured sharply at Malfoy.

They ate in silence, Hermione's eyes fluttering shut as she chewed. Across from her, Malfoy crouched against the wall, his entire body rigid with irritation and exhaustion. Hermione watched him from the corner of her eyes as she ate. His mercurial moods made her feel off-balance; she didn't know how to navigate them at the best of times. And this was not the best of times; she felt as if she was on a precipice, ready to jump or strike.

"You can have the larger one," she said, waving towards the bedrolls where Malfoy had left them on the dusty ground. He grunted again, and she snapped, glaring malevolently at his irritated expression.

"Gods, Malfoy, _grow up._ I am so sick of whatever crawled up your ass."

"And I am so sick of your useless rambling, Granger. Can't you just shut up for once in your life?"

She jumped to her feet, snatching her bedroll up from the ground as she whirled away from him. She stomped several meters away, throwing the bedroll onto the stone and a glare over her shoulder at the blonde git. "You know what? You can go fuck yourself. I don't know what I expected, trying to be civil with the son of a fucking Death Eater."

The minute the words left her mouth, she tasted ash. Sucking in a breath, she looked away from him and stared blankly at her bedroll. She blinked back sudden tears. The shame settled over her like a pall; how could she say such a thing to him, after he had poured his heart out to her in Stavanger? She felt her fingers clench on the bedroll and she took a shuddering breath, willing herself to calm. Rising slowly to her feet she squared her shoulders. She spun back towards him, her face contrite.

"Malfoy, I'm -" The words burst out of her chest on a puff of breath as her body was slammed back into the stone wall. He was _there_, holding her against the rock, his palms grinding into the bones of her shoulders. Her vision was filled with his snarling face, his pale eyes blazing with anger. She felt the fear rise up through her chest, setting her heart racing.

"For the last fucking time, Granger, _I am not my fucking father_," he hissed, fury and hurt dripping from every syllable. "When are you going to get that giant stick out of your ass and _let me live?_"

She shut her eyes, feeling as low as she had in years. The pain radiated out from where he pressed her shoulders into the stone. She opened her eyes, blinking at him through hot tears. She opened her mouth but he shook her, cutting her off with a snarl.

"Even your precious Potter trusts me; he doesn't question the information I provide him, he doesn't judge me for my past. Fucking _Weasley_ thanked me for the information that brought in Yaxley. How is it that two thirds of the Golden Trio is able to trust me, but Hermione fucking Granger still thinks I'm lower than dirt?"

Hermione gaped at him, his words ricocheting around inside her brain. Information_?_ Draco Malfoy was an Auror informant? _Oh Merlin_, _how she kept wronging this man._

She blinked up at him, her confusion and surprise flitting across her features. He glared down at her, his breath wheezing from his chest. He must have realized that he had let slip something important, because he shook himself in disgust and Hermione felt his grip on her shoulders lessen. His body coiled to turn away, but she grabbed at his arms and held him in place. He jolted as her fingers gripped him, but he stopped moving away from her.

"I am so sorry, Malfoy," she breathed, her eyes searching his face. He stilled under her touch, his body as taut and tense as a bow string. Her mouth twisted in remorse. "I'm so sorry. I lash out when I'm tired, or frustrated… and I know that's a terrible excuse." She shook her head, her expression rueful. She sucked in a breath, feeling tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. She blinked, looking up to the ceiling and choking on a laugh.

"Merlin, Malfoy, I know you're not your father. You drive me insane, you're a complete snob, you make me so incredibly angry sometimes… but you're not a Death Eater." She tightened her grip on his arms, catching his eyes. "You are an insufferable git with an attitude problem, but you are a good man."

Her words were a breathy whisper in the silent air, her gaze intense. She felt the entire length of his body inches from her own, could feel the rise and fall of his chest. She gripped his arms, her fingers spasming against his skin as they stared at each other. A moment passed, and she tried to think of what to say next, what words would quell the burning in his eyes. She could feel her cheeks heating under his gaze as she thought about what she had just said to him; she was seconds away from trying to escape when he leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers.

She gasped, arching into him almost instinctively. What had meant to be a push of lips was suddenly open-mouthed and urgent, his tongue sliding along hers as she clutched at him. She burned under his touch, her body reacting so viscerally that she was almost afraid. But then his fingers pressed into her skin and she felt something needy and delicious start to build in her core. Just his touch made her blood heat and she looked up at him with wide eyes.

His hand slid from her shoulders to her waist, drawing her closer as his hips pressed her against the stone. He pressed open-mouthed kisses along her jaw and neck, his breath coming in ragged pants. She hitched a leg up along his flank, hooking her calf around his waist and he cupped her ass, pulling her against him. She mewled at the contact, feeling him harden against her.

Everywhere he touched her sent sparks of desire shooting through her veins. Her breath was a hot wind in her chest, her mouth moving against his with no discernible rhythm. His fingers dug into her hip and under her thigh; she knew there would be bruises there and she did not care. All she cared about in that moment was getting him closer, pressing against him until she wasn't sure where his skin ended and hers began.

His hand came up and slid along her neck to her cheek, his palm cupping her face as his lips slowed. He pulled himself away from her, mere centimeters between them, and stared down at her. She watched him, her eyes hooded. His thumb rasped across her cheekbone, his eyes following it's path. She felt a sudden _rightness_ settle into her chest and she smiled up at him, her swollen lips sliding against his as she pressed gently against him. His hands carded through her curls, pulling them away from her face. He laughed, a soft breathy sound, and she grinned against his mouth. Her fingers fumbled at the waistband of his trousers as his caught in her hair.

"Are you sure?" His voice was raw with his need, but he pulled away again and searched her face. She felt her heart somersault in her chest; _this man… this damned man, how he continued to surprise her_. Her answer was to kiss him, sliding against him as they turned away from the wall. She slid past him and went to the bedrolls, laying them out beside each other and straightening them across the dusty ground. Her fingers tugged at the corners as she steadied herself, her heart racing in her chest as she gathered her courage around her like a cloak.

She turned back to him, finding him standing several feet away as he watched her. She smiled at him, reaching a hand out and he took it, lacing his fingers with hers. She tugged him towards her, laughing as his body collided with hers. He grinned down at her, his eyes bright as he followed the path of her blush as it rose from her chest to her face. He wrapped himself around her as he lowered her to the bedroll, his hands sliding along her body with such gentle reverence that she could have cried. He pushed her linen shirt up her torso and kissed her stomach, his mouth gliding across her ribs as his fingers brushed the underside of her breasts. She stretched languidly, her body on fire as he moved against her, his hands reaching around and deftly unhooking her bra.

She let him raise her up and she slipped her shirt and bra over her arms, until she was bare under his touch. His tongue laved her nipples and she groaned, the sound ripping up from some deep place in her belly. She pushed his shirt over his head, desperate to feel his skin against hers. As he pulled it off, she shimmied out of her trousers and then waited as he divested his own. And then he was there, the whole glorious length of his pale, lean body stretched out over hers and she laughed, her lips finding his as her fingers slid through his hair.

"What on earth is so funny, Granger?" He smirked against her skin, his mouth sliding along the line of her jaw. She gasped as his fingers delved lower, until he was swirling a rhythm against her sex that made her eyes cross.

"I don't know," she chuckled, her voice stuttering under his ministrations. "I'm just… happy."

His eyes met hers and he blinked, his expression unguarded. She saw emotions flow over his pale features and he caught her lips with his. She cupped his face with her hands, pulling him away until she could look into his eyes.

"Malfoy… I am sorry. You have been exactly what I needed on this mission and I haven't been fair to you."

His lips quirked in a smile as he stared down at her. "Well, I did steal the Book of Thoth from you. I think that alone justifies you thinking badly of me."

She laughed, her mouth pressing against his as he pulled her against him. His fingers were still tracing patterns and she shook against him from more than laughter. "Oh Merlin, that's right. I should be furious with you," she whispered, her lips moving against his.

"Then I'll just have to make you forget all about it," he retorted, his palm pressing against her as she came, arching into him. She shook in his arms for several moments, her mind ablaze with pleasure. As she stilled, she became aware of his hands sliding along her flanks and his mouth sucking at base of her neck. She grasped at him with weak fingers, her body still languid from her orgasm. Pulling him up her body she wrapped her legs around him, positioning him where she wanted him to be.

"Make me forget, Draco," she whispered, her mouth finding his. And she wasn't surprised at all when he did exactly what she asked.

Xx

Later, they lay tangled together in the bedrolls. She could feel his heart beating underneath her temple and he was tracing lazy patterns across her skin. Sleep was licking at the edges of her consciousness; she was warm and sated, the exhaustion from earlier swamping back through her veins. She could feel something else on the edge of her consciousness, a warmth and affection that made the blood sing in her veins.

"If I had known our arguments could end like that, Granger, then I think I probably would have antagonized you more," he murmured, his breath hot on her scalp.

She chuckled, shifting her weight against him. "I don't know how you think you could have antagonized me any more than you already did, Malfoy. We've been at each other's throats since we were in school."

"Half a lifetime of foreplay, I suppose," he mused, his fingers brushing her curls away from her shoulders. "I always knew it would be like that." His voice was slightly awed, and Hermione felt her heart stutter in her chest.

She rose up on her elbows, peering down at him in the dim light. His eyes were hooded as he watched her, his swollen lips quirked upward in his trademark smirk. But she couldn't detect an ounce of derision in his expression; in fact, he was watching her with a warmth that made her toes curl.

"You always knew?" Her question was soft in the silence and his hand came up to trace along her jaw and down her neck to her collarbone. His eyes followed the path of his fingers as she stared down at him. "What did you always know, Malfoy?"

"That you would be like this. Feisty. Passionate. So fucking sexy," he growled, his eyes burning into hers.

She felt the blush spreading out from her chest, but quirked an eyebrow at him as she regarded him with thinly-veiled disbelief. "Don't tell me you've been pining after me all this time, Malfoy. I don't believe it."

He barked a laugh, his hand sliding to the back of her neck before gripping her hair as he pulled her down to him. His lips pressed against hers and she huffed an indignant breath, feeling him smile against her mouth.

"No, Granger, I wasn't pining. Not in the way you're insinuating. But I've come to realize that I've always been attracted to you, ever since you got your teeth fixed back in school," he chuckled, his lips moving against hers. His hand slid down her spine before splaying at the small of her back, pressing her gently against him.

"But you hated me!"

"Yes, I did. I had to, back then," he admitted, his voice rueful. "But I was also a teenage boy who wanted to throw you into the nearest broom closet and have my evil way with you. It was a very confusing time for me."

She laughed, pulling away slightly to stare down into his face. He grinned up at her, his knuckles grazing her cheekbone. "After I was released from Azkaban, I couldn't escape news of you. War-Heroine Granger, Brightest Witch of Her Age. And I found myself… intrigued."

"Intrigued? Is that what you call trying to sabotage my work?" Her lips were turned upwards in a smile, her tone negating the harshness of her words.

"Like I said before, you're a worthy opponent Granger." His gaze was hot on hers, his hands burning into her skin. She stared down at him for several breaths, at a loss for words.

After a moment, she slid down beside him, stretching her body along his and laying her head on his chest. He wrapped an arm around her, his hand resting on her hip. She sighed contentedly, the sound of his heartbeat calming the questions that still swirled in her mind. She felt enveloped in a feeling of warmth, an almost tender endearment. Had she been more alert, she might have questioned it but she was too exhausted to care. As she began to slip into sleep, he pressed a kiss to her hair and she felt his lips move but the words were lost.


	10. Chapter 9

**April 27, 2008, Vanaheimr**

Hermione gathered up her bedroll and flicked her wand, watching as it shrunk to a manageable size. Beside her, Malfoy was doing much the same. She could feel the awkward tension settling around them as memories of the night before flowed through her mind. She was operating in a sense of disbelief, completely unsure how she had ended up _having sex_ with Draco Malfoy.

And not just any sex; it had been incredible, full of laughter and a palpable joy. For someone whose default demeanor was bordering on surly, Malfoy had surprised her. Somehow she had never thought those "Slytherin Sex God" rumors from school had included him being a generous lover. Her cheeks heated as she remembered the way his laughter sounded as his hands tangled in her curls and the way he had smirked against her collarbone.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw him standing stiffly at the entrance of the loft, peering down into the chamber below. She felt swamped with anxiety and embarrassment; the emotions were strangely disconnected again, as if she was feeling them outside of herself. She scrubbed at her face with her palms, the exhaustion seeping back into her bones.

She finished stowing their supplies and made her way towards Malfoy. Without a word, he lowered himself onto the rock-cut ladder and began to climb down. Hermione waited a moment and then followed, trying to focus her attention on the hand over hand descent. At the bottom of the ladder, she hopped to the stone floor. Wincing as her sore limbs absorbed the impact, she straightened. Brushing at her clothes, she watched Malfoy warily as he studied the map scroll.

"We've got a few more hours until we reach the entrance chamber," he said, his eyes not meeting hers. He rolled the map and stashed it in his belt pouch.

Hermione nodded, though he had already turned away from her. Something caught in her throat and she blinked quickly, refusing to allow the tears that threatened to fall. She felt confused and tired and on-edge. All she wanted was her quiet flat, a mug of strong tea and endless time to contemplate what on earth had just happened between her and Malfoy.

They began to walk and she studied the stiff plane of his back as he led the way out of the sleeping cavern. Her thoughts ran riot, jumping from memory to memory as she tried to trace the path that had lead them to last night. Until just a handful of days ago, their relationship had been antagonistic and competitive. They pushed each other to their respective limits, battling each other both physically and mentally.

But if she was going to be honest with herself, she had to admit that their skirmishes at excavation sites had been heady and intense and… fun. Until Egypt, she had managed to stay one step ahead of him. Her best work had come from racing against Malfoy, and even the theft of the Book of Thoth hadn't lessened the exhilaration she felt at facing off with him.

_We've always had chemistry_.

The realization that this wizard had been under her skin for much longer than the past few days made her stumble. Malfoy glanced over his shoulder at her, but she waved him on.

"I'm fine, just misstepped."

His gaze lingered for a moment, tracking across her flaming cheeks and the stubborn set to her jaw. Finally, he nodded and turned away. Hermione took a shuddering breath and righted herself. A quick memory of his hand splayed across her hip, his eyes burning into hers as he thrust upwards flashed across her consciousness and she had to physically restrain herself from stumbling again.

Once the rush of heat and desire faded a bit, she began to analyze the emotion. She had been feeling swamped with emotion since last night, even before their coupling. Everything felt amplified and much more intense, and sometimes she felt weighed down by emotions that felt alien. The exhaustion last night had made it hard to pinpoint why she felt so confused and uncomfortable, and even though she was still bone tired she had to figure this out.

Something was tickling at the edge of her consciousness, a memory or a hint. It fluttered just out of reach and she felt the frustration build as they trudged through another cavern chamber. The walls were painted in large geometric patterns, the colors rich and vibrant despite their age. Like so many of the chambers they had walked through, this one was sparsely furnished. Several carved sideboards were tucked against the wall, and they walked past a little cluster of tables and chairs.

Hermione struggled to capture the information that evaded her, the frustration spiking. She wanted to scream and had an intense urge to kick something. Suddenly, Malfoy's leg lashed out and caught a wooden chair, sending it clattering across the stone floor. Hermione jolted to a stop, her eyes wide. He stood several feet away, his shoulders hunched as he ran a trembling hand through his hair. Every muscle was taut with emotion, and she could see that his jaw was clenched. He growled under his breath and waved a stiff hand towards Hermione, forestalling anything she had meant to say. With another growl, he continued to walk.

_He's frustrated_, _like I am._

The thought ricocheted inside her brain and suddenly, she remembered. The chains held raw, ancient bonding magic and they must have triggered that magic when they had combined the First Chains. He had held Dromi and she had held Loeding, and they had combined the chains into one...

_Oh, fucking hell._

They were bonded somehow, Hermione was sure of it. Nothing as intense or as complete as a soul bond, thank Merlin, but enough that she was feeling his emotions as if they were her own. And she had to assume it was the same for him. Her frustration had seeped into his consciousness just now, influencing his own mood.

_No wonder last night was so intense_.

The thought made her cheeks flush, another spike of desire shooting through her. Ahead of her, Malfoy stumbled slightly and her eyes widened. He must have felt her lust. She cast her eyes around the chamber they had moved into, trying to focus on something, anything that would take her mind off last night.

They were in a large chamber, the walls still painted in geometric patterns. Long wood tables sat in neat rows the length of the cavern, each one surrounded by a handful of simple wood chairs. Hermione let her eyes roam over the space, her mind skipping away from her desire and towards her curiosity of how the Seidhrfolk had lived. This could have been a dining hall or work hall of some sort. She remembered that the map suggested that the community was large enough to have multiple kitchens and eating chambers. The thought of the large community living underground fascinated her.

She was so engrossed by her thoughts that she didn't catch the movement along the edges of the cavern until it was too late. A spell cut through the silence of the chamber, the magic sparking in the dim air. Malfoy threw himself towards her, knocking into her and slamming them both into the stone floor. Hermione felt her mind clear in an instant, her wand in her hand as she fell. Instinct took over and she rolled, coming up in a fighters crouch.

The Death Eaters were on them before she could blink. She dodged a hex and cast a hurried _Protego_, her eyes wildly taking in the scene. Walden MacNair loomed before her, his thin face alight with maniacal glee. Several other Dark Wizards moved in her peripheral vision, their wands out and trained on Malfoy. She could sense others behind her and she cursed their luck, to be ambushed in the center of this vast chamber. They were exposed on all sides and outnumbered.

A spell shot towards her from her right and she dodged, rolling away and trying to come up to retaliate. Another spell slammed into her shoulder and she was thrown back, the pain rippling through her limbs. Blood sprayed across the stone and she screamed, her legs scrambling against the floor as she tried to find her balance. She could see Malfoy several meters away, his face contorted with rage as he tried to move towards her. His wand swung left and right, the spells throwing Dark Wizards away from him.

A cold hand gripped her by her neck, lifting her slightly off the ground. Her toes scratched across the stone and she gasped, her wand coming up. Before she could cast, the tip of the other wizard's wand dug into her chest, just above her heart. She froze, her breath coming in sharp, shuddering bursts.

Her wild eyes caught Malfoy's where he had stopped, his wand raised. The Death Eaters he had been battling circled him, their wands trained on his chest.

"Lower your wand! Or the Mudblood gets hurt!" MacNair's voice was rough with triumph, his wand digging into her skin. Hermione felt on fire with fear and adrenaline, her heart pounding beneath the Death Eater's wand. She watched as Malfoy spread his arms wide and slowly lowered them, his wand pointed down to the floor.

MacNair grunted and released Hermione's throat. She slammed down on her heels, choking as she tried to fill her lungs. The wand was still pressed against her chest as the dark wizard's free hand scrabbled at her belt pouch. He ripped it from her belt and opened it one-handed, chuckling as he pulled the dampening bag out with one long finger.

"Well, well, Mudblood, what do we have here?" MacNair's voice was hot on her ear and Hermione shuddered, revulsion sliding across her skin. He laughed as his fingers gripped the dampening bag, his fingertips tracing the outline of the chain links against the magic-infused silk. "How thoughtful you and the Malfoy welp are to do our work for us."

Hermione felt a surge of panic and regret, coupled with the dull throb of magic from Gleipnir. She stared at Malfoy, her heart threatening to burst from her chest. He stared back, his face set and his eyes burning. A wave of affection and comfort and promise washed over her, sinking through her veins. Her eyes widened infinitesimally as she saw his wand twitch.

"We have the chain! Gleipnir is ours!" MacNair shrieked in triumph, his laughter ringing through the chamber. The other dark wizard's attention was on the dampening bag, their gazes caught by the power they could all feel inside. Hermione was the only one watching Malfoy and she felt a sudden squeeze around her heart as she realized what was happening.

His wand came up in a sweeping movement, the spell shooting from the tip in a flaming arc. The magic spread, throwing the dark wizards away from him. MacNair let out a shout of rage, the hand holding the dampening bag coming up to grip Hermione's neck cruelly. She could feel the hardness of the chain lengths digging into her skin. He lifted her off the ground, her legs swinging beneath her as she gasped for air. His wand came up, trying to train on Malfoy as he dueled the other dark wizards.

"Get the Malfoy boy! _Accio _map!"

Hermione felt her heart stop as the map scroll tore from Malfoy's belt pouch and hurdled through the air towards them. As he disappeared through the chamber entrance, trailed by several dark wizards, she felt her heart break. She sagged in MacNair's grip, hot tears tracking down her face.

"Let him go!" MacNair roared, his voice echoing off the cavern walls. "Without a map he is lost. Let the blood traitor wander these halls until he starves!"

He released Hermione and she collapsed, her hands coming up to feather at her bruised throat. She knew his wand was trained on her and she sucked in a breath, trying to center herself. She needed her wits about her now. She pushed a wave of fear and hope outwards, hoping that Malfoy would feel the emotions.

_Oh Merlin, be safe._

MacNair gripped her arm and roughly pulled her to her feet. He threw her towards one of the other dark wizards, who gripped her injured shoulder. Hermione screamed, the agony spiking through her. Another wizard backhanded her across the face, splitting her lip. She felt the blood track a path down her chin and drip onto her shirt. She spat a mouthful of blood onto the stone floor, getting some satisfaction when it splattered onto the dark wizard's shoes.

_My dirty blood, have fun washing that off you evil twat._

MacNair had unrolled the map scroll and was inspecting it, his eyes roving over the parchment. He glanced up at the commotion and his face twisted in disgust as he took in Hermione's bloodied face.

"I would kill you here and now, Mudblood, but I think you might come in useful," he growled, his eyes cold. "Who knows what sacrifices must be made to Fenrir the Wolf when we get to Amsvartnir."

Hermione glared back at him, the rage simmering beneath her skin. She felt her magic sparking around her and one of the wizards holding her gave a sharp yelp, before slamming his fist into the side of her head. Her vision swam and she whimpered. From deep in a cloud of pain, she heard MacNair speaking.

"Bring the Mudblood, we go to find Lyngvi."


	11. Chapter 10

**April 28, 2008, Vanaheimr**

Draco crouched in the hollow carved into the stone wall, his chest burning with the exertion of his flight. His forehead rested on his knees as he sucked in a ragged, searing breath. Willing himself to calm, he waited. The sound of the dark wizards in pursuit had trailed off, and he was fairly sure they had given up. Why bother? As far as they were concerned, he was as good as dead without a map.

Except that they didn't _know_. He fought down a spike of nausea as Hermione's pain and fear suddenly swamped through him. Her anger burned along his veins and he knew they had probably struck her, or hexed her in some way. The effort it required for her to reign in her anger shuddered through him and he chuckled darkly, able to picture her seething face with no problem whatsoever. He was unfortunately rather familiar with that particular expression.

He wanted to comfort her, but he wasn't sure how much she had realized about their bond. His own realization that something had changed between them had been coming on slowly since they had bound the First Chains together. He wanted to think that Hermione, Brightest Witch of Her Age, would have also recognized the bond but he couldn't be sure. A sudden wave of alien emotion might make her react in a way that could raise suspicion among the Death Eaters. He forced himself to level his breathing and wait.

He let his mind drift as he tentatively explored the scope of the bond, feeling along the cords of emotions that bound them. He had a vague sense of where she was, at least in terms of direction, and that made him breathe easier. It had been a gamble, leaving her there in that Gods-forsaken cavern, but he hadn't known what else to do. They had been outnumbered and exhausted; the only chance he had seen was to get away and get behind her and the Death Eaters. Maybe now he would have a chance to save her.

_And myself._

He sat back on the stone, letting his head drop against the wall. He could feel her tethered to him, her mind a warm presence within his own. It wasn't her thoughts that he could sense, but her emotions: fear, anxiety, pain, worry. He grit his teeth as her pain spiked, a sure indication that she had been struck again. A memory of her face looking up at him, her eyes warm and her fingers carding through the hair at the nape of his neck flashed across his conscious. He squeezed his eyes shut, his fists clenching in his lap as her fear warred with his memories of last night.

He had been so angry with her, had felt his fury sizzling along his veins. When she had gently apologized, when she had called him a _good man_… it was as if some lock had opened in his chest. He couldn't remember what had made him kiss her. His sudden, visceral need to touch her and her reactions to his touch made his breath quicken. The combination of their want, the heightened emotions magnified twofold… it had been so intense, so incredible. He had never experienced anything like it: the laughter, the pleasure, the comfort. He scrubbed at his face with his palms.

A wave of _something_ came singing down the connection with Hermione. He sat up, his head cocked as he tried to decipher the emotions. It flooded through him, reaching into all of his dark corners and hollows. Affection, comfort… need? It felt very deliberate, as if she had directed it towards him. Draco slid up the wall to his feet, his skin prickling as he realized that _she knew_.

He sent his own wave of reassurance towards her, filling it with as much warmth as he could. He felt her receive it, felt their combined affection twine together in the connection between them. Her presence within the bond began to shift and tremble, and he knew that they must be on the move.

He began to walk, keeping to the shadows of the walls and skirting through the caverns as he trailed behind Hermione and her dark wizard captors. He didn't dare get too close, but followed the beacon of her emotions as they moved further into the cave system. As he walked, he continued to explore the connection between them. He chased her emotions down it, until he felt as if he could reach out and touch her mind.

He stopped suddenly, his eyes wide.

"_Legilimens,_" he whispered. He had no idea what it would do, if it would even work. But something about the connection felt familiar and, as the spell took hold, he grinned to himself. It was vaguely recognizable but strange, as if he walked on a different path than he normally would have tread. Her mind didn't open up before him, but instead it felt as if he sidled up alongside her.

_Hermione._

_Draco?_

He sucked in a breath. It had been a thought, an emotion made specific. Not exactly his name, but a feeling he could translate.

_Hermione. I'm following. Don't do anything stupid._

He hoped she would understand, that his thoughts would make sense. He waited a moment and could practically hear the gears of her mind spinning as she deciphered this new development.

_I'm not the one without a bloody map. Be careful, Draco._

The elation this communication between them caused roared through him and he grinned into the empty cavern. This could change everything. He pushed a feeling of confidence and determination towards her and felt her receive it. With a deep breath, he opened his eyes and began to walk.

Xx

He had been walking for hours. The well-lit caverns full of furniture and painted walls had long since given way to dark and damp corridors roughly hewn from the bedrock. Ahead of him by several caverns was the group of Death Eaters and Hermione. She had stopped responding to his attempts through the bond, other than vague feelings of comfort. But he could feel her, the blinding brightness of her mind, ahead of him. He suspected she was as exhausted as he was, and tried not to think of the possibility of her being in pain.

As he stopped to lick at the damp walls, desperate for moisture to dampen his parched throat, a sudden mental cry reverberated in his skull.

_Draco!_

He tore himself from the wall and sprinted through the cavern, his body taut with fear.

_What is it? Are you alright? Hermione!_

Her emotions swamped through the connection, a mix of fear and caution, tinged with desperation.

_Careful! We are in a big space, with a lake. Come slowly._

Her presence felt brighter and more solid the faster he ran, until he was sure he was only a cavern's length behind her. Slowing his pace, he crept forward to the corridor and moved silently along the wall. He began to hear voices, the words lost in a rush of echoes.

He slid forward, his back pressed against the damp wall. Light refracted across the stone, the reflections undulating in a steady rhythm. _Water,_ he thought, _it's reflecting off water._

He pushed his head around the entrance at a glacial pace, his hand gripping his wand. Several meters away, the group of Death Eaters were congregated on the shore of a large body of water. The immense cavern that held it was lit again with that weird light, the walls honed smooth as glass. _Amsvartnir_. The black lake. They had found it.

One of the dark wizards was shouting, his arm raised as he waved expansively towards the other side of the cavern. The other Death Eaters shouted back at him, all of their attention trained on a rocky outcrop of land in the center of the cavern. Draco glanced towards the island, but then looked away as he searched for her in the clutch of figures. He found her slumped beside a dark wizard, her legs folded beneath her and one arm raised overhead where the man gripped it cruelly. Her curls hung around her face and he could see her chest rising and falling as she sucked in deep, ragged breaths.

_Hermione. I'm here._

She didn't react, but he felt her receive the thoughts and was rewarded with a bright flash of happiness along the connection.

_They are trying to decide what to do,_ she sent back. _They act brave, but I think Lyngvi and Fenrir scare them, the bastards._

Draco's eyes snapped towards the island, his breath caught in his throat. Lyngvi, the prison of Fenrir the Wolf.

_What are they thinking they will find? Surely they've read the same legends we have. Nothing but death on that island._

Without warning, the Death Eater's began to fly across the water. Draco grimaced, always hating this part. Back in his misguided youth, when he had been one of their ranks, he had found the entire experience disturbing. The magic that levitated them was the darkest sort, and it had felt oily and wrong in ways he couldn't describe. The memory shuddered along his skin as he watched the man holding Hermione haul her upwards. She was thrown across a dark-robed shoulder, her body limp with exhaustion. She was so boneless that Draco felt the panic rise in his gut, until she sent him a hurried admonishment.

_I'm fine! Don't do anything stupid, Draco. Please._

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his racing heart. Keeping to the shadows, he watched as the Death Eater launched himself and Hermione into the air. Draco's eyes tracked them as they flew over Amsvartnir until they reached the rocky island. He had to squint to keep her in his sights.

After several moments, he made a decision. There was nothing else to do; he had to get to that island. Ducking back behind the stone, he cast a disillusionment charm on himself and waited as the magic settled around him. Once he felt it in place, he slid out along the stone to the water's edge. Eyeing the black water with distaste, he cast a hurried _Bubblehead Charm_ and waded cautiously into the lake.

He submerged as quickly as possible, hoping that his movement didn't cause rippling along the surface of the water. A wordless _Lumos_ lit the end of his wand and he swam forward, his long arms and legs pulling himself through the dark water. It took several minutes for the land to begin to rise and he slid along the rock until he was just below the surface. With an agonizing amount of caution, he let his head break the surface until only his eyes appeared.

The legs and feet of the dark wizards were several meters in front of him up the rock bank. They were clustered together in a tight group, their voices rising and falling as they argued.

_Merlin_, _this lot is hopeless_. _The Dark Lord would have hung them all by their entrails yesterday._

Hermione was slumped again on the ground, her arms wrapped around herself. Her face was hidden by her hair, but he could feel her dark amusement along the bond. He knew that she could sense him, but she didn't give any indication that would cause suspicion. One of the dark wizards suddenly broke away from the others and grabbed her arm, hauling her towards a needle thin stalagmite. Draco recognized Walden MacNair as he turned to push Hermione against the column. The thin-faced wizard pulled a length of chain from the pouch at his belt and let it dangle in front of Hermione's face. Draco had to keep himself from cursing aloud as he recognized the First Chains.

MacNair yanked Hermione's arms behind her, crossing her wrists behind the stalagmite. He wrapped the First Chains around her wrists, tapping the chain with his wand. She sat rod straight, her eyes trained on the far-way wall of the cavern. Draco could feel the anger rolling off her in waves, but she stayed as still as death. A surge of affection for the witch flooded through him. As he sent a quick push of comfort and strength through the bond, he felt the disillusionment charm fall away.

_Fuck, I buggered that._

He rose slowly, the water sluicing off his clothing. Hermione's eyes snapped towards him. His vague plan to somehow make his way to her without being noticed faded as quickly as the charm. Cursing himself for getting distracted by the infuriating witch, he raised his wand.

"MacNair! Step away from her or I swear on Merlin's grave I will drown this entire island with Fiendfyre!"

His voice rang out in the cavern, echoing off the cathedral height ceiling. The dark wizards froze and, as one, turned towards him. Walden MacNair was half crouched behind Hermione, his head turned at an impossible angle as he stared towards the blonde wizard. If he hadn't been so bloody terrified, Draco would have found the looks on all of their faces hilarious.

MacNair recovered quickly, straightening and raising his own wand.

"Well, well, if it isn't the Malfoy welp! You followed us here, scented on the Mudblood like a cursed bloodhound? Your father would murder you himself if he could see you now, Draco!"

He lifted a foot as if to step out from behind the stalagmite and Draco screamed, jabbing his wand towards the dark wizard.

"Not one bloody step, MacNair! Release her or I will burn this place to the fucking ground!"

MacNair grinned, his rotten teeth bared as he chuckled. His raised wand shifted, until it was pointed at the back of Hermione's head. She stiffened, her curls sliding away from her face as her back straightened. The only sign of her fear was a slight widening of her eyes as she kept them locked on Draco.

"I don't think you will, blood traitor. You wouldn't destroy such powerful artifacts as Gleipnir and the First Chains," MacNair sneered, his eyes locked on Draco. "But most importantly, you wouldn't destroy the Mudblood. Do you think you can cast the Fiendfyre and reach her before I kill her? I've heard you are quick, but I don't think you're _that_ quick."

Draco remained silent, his wand arm trembling with the effort to keep it raised. His eyes were caught by Hermione's, the bond between them singing with emotion.

"Cast the spell, Malfoy. When you do, the Mudblood dies with the chains."

They stood silently for several moments, the tension as taut as a bow string. Draco felt a tremor of desperation lurch through him and he let out his breath, his wand arm lowering as it left his lungs. The dark wizards fell on him, a fist slamming into the side of his head. Someone yanked his wand from his grip as a knee connected with his stomach. He doubled over, the pain blossoming from every contact. He was dragged across the stone, blood seeping into his mouth.

"Bind him with the Mudblood. He can be her companion in sacrifice to the wolf."

Rough hands pushed him down, his back against the column of stone. His wrists were pulled behind him and he felt the sinuous slide of metal against his skin as the chain was wrapped around them. His fingers stretched and he felt his fingertips brush against cloth. _Hermione_.


	12. Chapter 11

Well, here it is kids. The last chapter of this story. I'm still in a bit of shock that it's finished, and I hope you have all enjoyed it! Thank you all so much for the kudos and comments and shares, I appreciate it more than you will ever know!

Never-ending thanks to CourtingInsanity for her diligent, meticulous & lovely beta work!

Follow me on tumblr ( ) for writing updates & fanart. I am plotting and doing cursory writing on my next WIP, hoping to get a large enough lead to start posting in October. Until then, I might share a few one-shots and possibly even an epilogue for this story.

Thanks again & much love! xo

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

**April 28, 2008, Lyngvi, Amsvartnir, Vanaheimr**

The pulsing power of the First Chains rubbed the skin of Hermione's wrists until they were raw. The pain shot up her arms, pulled cruelly behind her around the stalagmite. Her fingers brushed against the linen of Draco's shirt, and she wished desperately that she could see him. The sight of his bloodied face was seared onto her consciousness and his pain ricocheted through their bond.

Macnair moved into view, his dark robes swirling about him as he strode towards his compatriots. They stood huddled in a tight group at the center of the island, their arms swinging wildly and their voices hissing along the stone. Hermione narrowed her eyes as she watched them, sure that they were arguing about their next move. It seemed as if, now that they had reached Lyngvi, Macnair and his minions were not so sure-footed.

A spike of pain burst along the bond and Hermione stiffened, aware of the man slumped against the rock behind her even though she couldn't see him.

_Draco. Are you hurt badly?_

His amusement danced between them, colored with pain. He shifted his weight, the tips of his fingers brushing against her hip.

_I've been better, witch. But I'm alive. _

Relief swamped through her at the sardonic tinge of his emotions. She was fairly sure that if he had been majorly injured that he wouldn't see any humor in the situation.

Several yards away, Macnairr shouted something, his voice a wordless clap of anger in the cavernous space. The noise jolted Hermione out of her musings and she swung her gaze towards the dark wizards. A reed-thin arm moved and Macnair dug within his robes for a moment. As he pulled the dampening bag from within his robes, Hermione felt her blood freeze.

_He's going to reveal Gleipnir. Draco, this is bad._

She could feel Draco stiffen behind her. The bond was flooded with his worry.

_What's going to happen when he reveals it, Granger?_

She swallowed hard at his use of her last name, the roughness of his thoughts doing a poor job of masking his fear. She sent a quick wordless thought of comfort through the bond and then considered his question.

_I can't be sure. On the journey here they discussed what they would do once they had Fenrir at their beck and call, but how they plan to bind the Wolf wasn't clear. I think they are correct that revealing the Gleipnir will awaken the Wolf - that amount of raw magic will call him like a moth to a flame. _

She could sense Draco mulling over this information. She shifted her weight slightly, trying to ease the pull of her arms.

_It would seem that we are lucky that the power of the First Chains didn't awaken Fenrir._

Hermione felt a surge of affection for the blond wizard. He had always been quick and intelligent, and the novelty of having someone with her who understood her explanations on the first try was an unexpected pleasure.

_I can only assume that the First Chains, while Gods-given, are not powerful enough. You felt the difference. And Fenrir is bound with the original length of Gleipnir. Like calls to like._

Draco's agreement warmed the bond and she bit back a sigh as his fingertips stroked her hip. She kept her eyes trained on the Death Eaters as Macnair held the dampening bag aloft.

_I can't work out how they think they will be able to transfer the binding from the original length of Gleipnir to the extra length, but I have a terrible feeling that they won't get a chance. _

Since they had stepped foot onto the rock of Lyngvi, Hermione had felt the strange otherness of this space. The Wolf may not be visible, but his presence was a malevolent darkness skirting at the edges of her vision as she frantically took in the scene before her.

The dark wizards crowded around Macnair as he slid the length of Gleipnir from the bag. As the material fell away, a surge of raw magic pulsed through the cavern, pressing Hermione back into the stalagmite. She felt Draco convulse behind her, his panic racing along the bond.

Her eyes widened as the chain began to glow within Macnair's palm, the power pulsating around the island in waves. The dark wizard yelped and shook the chain away from him, but instead of dropping to the rock it hung in the air before him. The Death Eaters took several steps away, their eyes trained to the glowing chain as it floated in the dim light of the cavern. It began to rise, the power surging in a growing crescendo. Hermione slammed her head back into the stalagmite, a trickle of blood running from her nostril and over her lips.

Reams of information on magical artifacts cycled through Hermione's brain as she desperately tried to understand what was happening. The divine source of this power felt alien to her sense of magic, beyond all comprehension. She tried to remember everything she knew about dealing with deities, but her mind stuttered and she chastised herself for not doing more research. _What a time to be caught without knowledge!_

A breeze began, lifting the dark robes of the Death Eaters and making Hermione's curls dance around her face. It quickly morphed into a howling wind, the gusts causing the dark wizards to cover their faces and grip their wands. Watching them shield their eyes, Hermione felt a memory flash across her mind. The Gods demanded obsequience; every legend and source she had ever read referenced the averting of eyes in the presence of divine beings. She felt a sinking sensation as the pressure in the room suddenly dropped, an alien sense of something _wrong_ blooming around the island. The sound of the wind became the sound of a mournful howling wolf, and Hermione felt panic flair deep within her chest.

"Draco! Close your eyes!" she screamed into the wind, her words ripping from her throat while simultaneously punching down their bond. "Whatever you do, don't open your eyes!"

She hoped he would understand as she screwed her eyes shut, tucking her chin into her chest as the wind whipped around them. The sound of the baying wolf ripped along the air currents, swirling around the cavern and echoing off the stone. Hermione could just make out the panicked shouts of men beneath the bestial noise, the voices pitched high with terror.

As Hermione was not the praying type, she didn't quite know who to ask for protection so she began to recite a litany of names in the hopes that someone, somewhere, would take pity on them.

_Odin, Frigg, Loki, Thor, Freya, Idun, Heimdar...please!_

Around them swirled the wind and the howl of a wolf. Screams of pain and panic rent the air, cut short with deafening finality. She could feel Draco through the bond, his emotions a knot of panic and fear. His fingertips dug into her hip, their only physical contact, but one that Hermione centered on. The backs of her eyelids glowed with the light of Gleipnir, the magic pulsing brightly. She couldn't be sure how long they sat there, cowering against the stalagmite. It felt interminable.

The air was thick with noise and fear and the scent of blood. Something wet splashed across her neck and chest. The panic bubbled up within her until she was shaking with terror, her body desperate to flee and her mind echoing with the sounds of violence.

And then, suddenly, all went dark and silent.

Hermione continued to convulse against the stone, her arms wrenching painfully within her bonds. As the moments slid past, her heart stuttered and she felt the panic begin to disperse within her veins. She almost didn't recognize the feel of the chains sliding from her skin, but the sound of the metal hitting the stone floor shocked her into awareness. She opened her eyes.

The bodies of the dark wizards lay crumpled like discarded dolls across the rock of Lyngvi. The stench of blood and flesh assaulted Hermione's senses, her eyes wide as she took in the carnage. It looked as if a pack of wild dogs had torn the Death Eaters limb from limb, leaving them to rot in a mess of tissue and blood. She felt the bile rise in her throat and choked it down.

Macnair's body lay where it had fallen, his ruined chest a violent splash of red against his dark robes. Beside him lay the dampening bag. The outline of a chain was visible against the silk. Somehow Gleipnir had slid back into the bag, shuttering its power. Hermione shook her head, trying to clear the brain fog that swamped through her head.

The sound of cloth on stone behind her made Hermione swing around, her eyes catching Draco's. He had moved from behind the stalagmite, his eyes wide in his pale face. His breath dragged through his chest as he stared at her and she felt something unnamed and heavy fill her veins. The sharp end of the panic and terror tore through her, leaving a quivering, boneless horror in its wake. She felt tears hot on her cheeks and a sound like the whimpering of a wounded animal forced its way out of her throat. She threw herself at him.

He caught her, his arms gathering her into his lap with a desperation that made her sob into his chest. His hand came up, carding through her curls until it caught and he levered her head until she was looking up into his face. His eyes scanned her before crashing his lips onto hers.

The kiss was frantic, a hard press of lips and teeth. Hermione tasted tears and felt his hands sliding along her body as he alternately gripped and caressed her. After several moments, he pulled away just enough to suck in a breath.

"Are you ok?"

His palms slid up her neck, cupping her cheeks as he gazed down at her. She nodded, wiping her tears away with shaking hands.

"I'm fine, fine," she whispered, her voice rough in the stillness of the cavern. "Oh, _Draco_." She said his name with every ounce of fear and worry and relief that boiled within her chest. The recognition blooming within his eyes made her take a deep, cleansing breath as his forehead dropped to press against hers.

"_Merlin_, Granger," he whispered, his breath hot on her skin.

They clutched at each other for several heartbeats, desperate for steadying contact and warmth. Hermione pressed herself as close to Draco as she could get, curling herself against his chest as his arms tightened their hold around her. She felt the fear lessening with each of the heartbeats she could feel against her cheek.

She took another cleansing breath and sat back, willing herself to get a grip. With a shaky smile at Draco, she rose to her feet as her eyes scanned the cavern. Brushing at her trousers with trembling fingers, she squared her shoulders.

As she moved towards the center of the island, Draco pulled himself to his feet and followed. She could hear his footsteps echoing across the stone, the sound pulsing in the silent space. After the maelstrom of howling wind and cries, the staccato rhythm of his footfalls felt strange and out of place.

She ignored the mauled bodies of the dark wizards as she picked her way across the stone. Crouching beside the lump that would have proved to be Macnair had she allowed herself to look, Hermione gently scooped the dampening bag from the stone. Gleipnir pulsed dimly from within the silk and she shuddered, knowing what that power could unleash.

Draco sidled up beside her, his face twisted in disgust as he regarded what was left of Walden Macnair. She rose to her feet and watched the blond wizard. She kept her eyes trained to his face, not wanting to see past the splashes of blood on the stone. A myriad of emotions flowed over his aristocratic features as he stared down at the body of the Death Eater.

"He was there when I was Marked," he growled, his voice a violent rumble in the stillness of the cavern. "He watched the Dark Lord _bless_ me, watched as my own father threw me to the wolves. He was there every time I was punished, made an example of, forced to punish others. He saw it all."

Hermione reached for him, her fingers catching at his shirtsleeves but he pulled away from her as if she burned.

"_Merlin_, Granger," he half-sobbed, his eyes haunted. "I was one of them."

She moved towards him slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal. She skated her fingertips across his cheekbones and along the sharp curve of his jaw until she could tuck her small hand under his chin. She pulled his face up until he was looking at her and she smiled.

"Draco Malfoy, you listen to me and you bloody-well hear me," she whispered, her voice insistent. "You are not the sum of the choices you made as a boy. Your life since the War is proof of that and I am so sorry it took me so long to see it."

She slid her hand to the back of his neck and tugged him closer, until their chests were pressed against each other and she had to tilt her head back to look into his eyes.

"I am Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of Her Age, Order of Merlin First Class, and I say that you are a _good man_."

He sighed, his warm breath hitting her skin before he pressed a lingering kiss to her lips. She clutched at him, tears threatening as he trembled against her.

"I don't deserve you, Granger," he whispered.

She pulled back, her eyes narrowed as she glared up at him. "I rather think that's my decision to make."

He laughed, the sound bouncing off the stone and warming her blood as he stepped backwards. He ran a hand through his hair, sucking in a breath as he scanned the cavern.

"_Accio wands,_" he commanded, his voice harsh in the stillness. "_Accio map._" His arms raised and Hermione watched as their wands flew first to one hand and the coiled map scroll to the other. Draco wiped her wand on his trousers, leaving behind a bright smear of blood. He offered it to her, his palm hovering in the space between them.

Another cleansing breath and she reached for it, curling her fingers around the wood. The sense of _rightness_ when she had it in her grasp rolled through her and she grinned up at him. He stared back at her, his lips quirking in the ghost of a smirk.

"How the hell did we survive that, Granger?" His question cracked the silence as he gestured for her to move away from the carnage and towards the waterline. She slid past him, watching the stone as she walked. Avoiding the mess was proving to be difficult.

"I… I can't be sure," she admitted, her voice soft. "The only thing I can think of is that being bound with the First Chains saved our lives."

He watched her expectantly as they reached the edge of Lyngvi, the water lapping softly against the stone.

"Macnair sealed the chains with his magic, but the power of the First Chains themselves is Gods-given. It isn't as powerful as Gleipnir, but they were forged at the Gods' request…"

"And you think it was enough to shield us from Fenrir?" His voice was low as a hand came up to grip her forearm gently. She turned herself until her body faced his, her face tipped up to look into his eyes.

"It's the only thing that makes even a small amount of sense," she whispered. "By all rights we should have died with them, Draco." She blushed, her eyes widening at the intensity of his gaze. "I'm not ashamed to say that I prayed. Maybe the Gods heard me."

He chuckled, his fingers spasming against her arm. "Me too, Granger," he said, his voice warm. "I've never prayed so hard in my fucking life." His other hand came up to trace the line of her jaw, settling under her chin. "We've been given a gift. Would be a shame to waste it."

She grinned up at him, her hands tangling in his shirt. "Let's go home, Draco."

**April 30, 2008, St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries**

Hermione fought her way up from a deep well of exhaustion, her mind clearing as she blinked blearily into the darkness. She stretched, feeling the cotton sheets of the bed slide along her bare skin. Glancing down, she took in the clean white nightgown where it rode up at her hips and her legs tangled in the dull gray St Mungo's blankets.

She was alone in a small, dark room. The only light and sound came from several standard monitoring charms along the wall, the lazy blinking casting soft shadows across the white floors. Flopping on to her back, she stretched languidly and waited for her mind to come fully awake.

She and Draco had stumbled, half dead from dehydration and exhaustion out of the caves and into the waiting arms of Harry and his Aurors. They had arrived that morning and had been debating a course of action when the pair had fallen through the stone wall. There had been a general outcry and in the middle of the swirling chaos of concerned Aurors, Hermione had dropped the dampening bag containing Gleipnir into Harry's palm. As Draco slid the First Chains from his belt pouch, she had turned towards Ron's outstretched arms and promptly collapsed.

Considering where she found herself now, she had to assume an emergency Portkey had been procured. Someone must have brought her to St Mungo's to recuperate. She let her consciousness track down her body, cataloguing her injuries; various bruises and scrapes, a very tender spot in the rib area of her right side, a slightly swollen left ankle. A general feeling of bone-tiredness and stiff joints.

Beneath the physical pain and discomfort, something else lingered. The emptiness of missing _something_. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and winced at the pull of exhausted muscles.

Hobbling across the room, she slipped through the door and paused in the darkened hallway. At the far end, a dim light glowed and she could hear faint voices at what she assumed would be a nurses station. She turned away and began to pad down the hallway, her bare feet slapping softly against the cold tiles. Closed doors slid past and she regarded each of them as she walked. Finally stopping at a door near the end of the hallway, she reached for the doorknob and let out a sigh of relief when it turned easily in her hand.

She opened the door wide enough to allow herself to slip in, shutting it softly behind her. Leaning against the closed door, she took in the shadowed room. It was almost identical to the one she had just left; the monitoring charms blinked lazily against one wall, and the entire room was centered around the small bed.

She felt the bond pulse within her, the nearness of Draco sending a shot of warm comfort coursing through her veins. The relief was almost instantaneous and she smirked to herself, half wondering if this was a physical sensation or an emotional one. _Did it matter?_ She didn't think it did, really. She was used to having him nearby, the short amount of time he had inhabited within her life so full of promise and meaning that she couldn't bear the thought of being without him. She made her way to the bed and slid in beside him, curling her body around his.

As she settled the blankets around them, he turned and snaked an arm around her waist. She smirked up at him, her face tilted towards his as he peered down at her in the dark.

"Hi." His voice was a rough whisper, hot against the skin of her cheeks.

"Hello to you too," she laughed, pressing herself closer.

His hand slid along her flank, tracing the curves of her body until it pressed against her lower back. Dropping his face to hers, he pressed his lips lightly against her mouth. The kiss was soft and chaste, more for comfort than anything else. Hermione felt something coil within her and she had to restrain herself from deepening the kiss. Something in his touch made her hold back, as if she needed to wait. But her heart was beating a rapid rhythm in her chest, her fingers clenching in his pajama shirt when all they wanted to do was press into the dips of his ribs.

Draco must have felt something in the bond, because his mouth slid away from hers and began a tortuous path across her jaw. He paused at the curve of her neck, his lips warm against her skin. She couldn't stop herself from arching into him when she felt his tongue, hot and wet, against her pulse point.

"Granger," he groaned, his lips moving against her skin. She sighed, her hands finding their way into his hair. She was about to pull him closer when he stilled. Levering away from her, he moved far enough so that he could see her face. He watched her in the dark, his liquid gray eyes large in his pale face.

"Will you still want this when we wake up tomorrow?" he whispered, his voice a thin thread in the silence of the room. "Or will it be too much?"

She opened her mouth to respond but he pressed a finger to her lips, his brow furrowing.

"Look, Granger, I know… I know the relationship between a former Death Eater and war heroine Hermione Granger isn't going to go over well in some circles."

She snatched his hand away from her mouth, curling her fingers around his and pulling his hand to her chest. Her face tilted up to his as she pressed forward, her lips brushing against his mouth. His breath caught and stuttered as their eyes met.

"I want this," she breathed, the words heavy with feeling both in the air and through their bond. "We'll probably irritate each other to an early death and Merlin knows we still need to discuss Egypt, but I want _this_, Malfoy. And that's all I need to know."

He stared down at her, his eyes bright in the enveloping darkness. A moment passed and Hermione was just about to say something more when his lips crashed against hers, his hands gathering her to him with a trembling sense of urgency. As he pressed her back into the hospital bed, she felt the joy bubble up within her chest until it escaped on a laugh.

**May 3, 2008, Department of Mysteries, Ministry of Magic**

The small room off the Entrance Chamber of the Department of Mysteries was a sterile space, lined with the same gleaming black tiles as the rest of Level Nine. Hermione leaned back in her chair, her eyes trained on Ron as she half-listened to him prattle on about the Remembrance Day celebrations she had missed the day before. Harry lounged on Ron's other side, his long legs stretched out under the table and his dark head tipped against the back of his chair. His eyes were closed and Hermione was fairly sure he was asleep; he had always had an uncanny knack of being able to sleep anywhere.

Draco leaned against the wall behind her, his gaze settled on her like a warm cloak. She cut her eyes at him and grinned, feeling a flood of affection sing down the bond. The healers at St Mungo's had been fairly sure the bond created by the First Chains would eventually fade, and Hermione felt a pang of regret that it wasn't permanent. Everything that had happened in Norway had been incredible, but the bond between them was the most fascinating piece of magic. She hoped that there would be time to study it before it faded. And once it was gone, she would miss the ability to communicate in this way with the tall, blonde wizard.

_And the bond's ability to increase the intensity of certain physical connections, you'll miss that too, Granger?_

She kept herself from laughing out loud, but turned her gaze fully towards Draco. He was smirking down at her, his eyes warm, when the door to the room was flung open. Minister of Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt, strode in, his azure robes swirling around his tall frame. Beside him walked a reedy man with pale skin to rival Draco's, and a solemn, serious countenance. The two men positioned themselves across the table from Hermione, Ron and Harry. While Kingsley smiled in greeting, the other man flicked his wand towards the door. The sound of the door clicking shut made Harry jump to attention, his palm rubbing at his eyes.

"It's good to see the three of you together." Kingsley's deep voice boomed in the enclosed space, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled at them. "Though I have to say I much prefer the types of meetings we hold now over the ones we held a decade ago."

Harry snorted and then stifled a yawn, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes. Hermione chuckled, her eyes flicking to where Draco still leaned against the wall. Kingsley also turned his attention to the blond wizard, his smile widening.

"And Draco Malfoy, we haven't seen you in the Ministry halls in quite some time."

"How are you, Minister?" Draco's voice was perfectly polite, his expression blank as he regarded Kingsley.

"I'm well, my boy, perfectly well." The Minister waved a large hand towards Draco as he lowered himself into his chair. He swept his hand out and gestured towards the man who was standing beside him. "This is Unspeakable Alec Trebond, our Department of Mysteries liaison for this case."

Unspeakable Trebond nodded slowly at the group, his gaze unreadable. Hermione felt a shiver run the length of her spine, a typical response when she happened to encounter the denizens of the Department of Mysteries. She wondered if it was a requirement for employment that all Unspeakables were impossible to read and slightly creepy.

Harry cleared his throat and straightened in his chair, shuffling a stack of files on the table in front of him.

"I suppose I'll get this meeting going, then," he grumbled, voice still rough with sleep. "We're here to take the statements of Retrievalist Hermione Granger and freelance retrieval specialist Draco Malfoy." He tapped his wand several times on the table, peering at it. "Is this thing working? I never know if it's actually recording these things."

Hermione suppressed a chuckle as Harry waved his wand, muttering the dictation charms. She felt the familiar itch to reach over and help him, but she kept her hands to herself. Harry was a big boy now. Ron shifted slightly in his seat and when she glanced at him, she caught his amused gaze.

"Alright, bugger this. Let's just get on with it," Harry spat, casting an evil glare at his wand. "Hermione, Malfoy, I need to get on the record what Death Eaters you encountered during this case."

"Walden Macnair was the only one I recognized," Hermione said, glancing at Draco who nodded his agreement.

"Macnair, Walden," Harry intoned into his wand. "Status?"

"Deceased," she said, as Ron pumped a fist in the air beside her. She rolled her eyes at him, her lips trembling on a smile.

"Any others?" Harry asked.

"He was the only one we recognized, Harry," she said, her voice contrite. "But there were eight other deceased dark wizards when we left Amsvartnir."

"Probably new recruits," Ron said. He ran a hand through his red hair and grimaced. "Unfortunately there are still wizards and witches who are tempted by the Dark Arts."

"Too dangerous to go back and check," Harry mused, his expression contemplative. "Maybe sometime in the future we can get a team down there." He grinned at Hermione as she straightened in her chair. "Knew you'd like that one, 'Mione. I can see you're desperate to get back to Vanaheimr and analyze every crack in the stone."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea, Potter. Amsvartnir should be left alone," Draco drawled, his voice making Hermione jump slightly. "We still aren't sure how we managed to survive Fenrir the Wolf and I'm not sure that luck could be repeated."

Hermione nodded emphatically, feeling her blood chill at the memory of the ghostly howling on Lyngvi. Across from her, Kingsley was watching Draco with interest.

"Mr. Malfoy, we're all impressed and grateful for your help on this case," the Minister declared. "So much so that the Ministry would like to offer you a position within MARRD. I spoke with Morris and he agrees that you would be an asset to the department."

Hermione turned wide eyes towards Draco and he glanced down at her with a smirk. She smiled back, feeling her pride in him flooding down the bond. His eyes heated and she felt him restrain himself from reaching for her. Instead, he swung his gaze back to the Minister.

"That's very kind of you, Minister Shacklebolt," he insisted. "But I'm afraid I'm too set in my ways to take a Ministry position."

Kingsley's laugh echoed off the tiles of the office, his tall frame shaking in his seat. "Can't say I'm surprised, my boy. In fact, I was expecting that," he chuckled. "In that case, how would it sound for Malfoy Retrievals to work on a contract basis with MARRD? I'm sure Hermione could act as liaison."

She nodded, her eyes bright as she looked from the Minister back to Draco. He regarded her, his expression contemplative.

"That is an interesting proposition, Minister. I'll definitely give it some thought," he demurred, though Hermione could tell by his sudden grin that he was already on board.

"Malfoy has experience working with the Ministry," Harry quipped, his eyes glinting behind his glasses as he grinned at Draco. "He's been feeding us information for some time, quite useful stuff that has helped immensely in the ongoing fight against the Dark Arts."

Draco shuffled uncomfortably as Kingsley swung a heavy gaze towards him, his dark brow furrowed in contemplation. Hermione caught Harry's eye and shot him a glare, trying to convey her annoyance that she had never been informed of Draco's role as an Auror informant.

Harry flushed, scooting the files around the table in front of him as he cleared his throat.

"Yes well, we're all proud of Malfoy and Hermione's contributions and efforts," he mumbled, studiously avoiding Hermione's glare.

"Harry, one question," she interjected, raising a finger to stop his muttering. She grinned as he blinked owlishly back at her, trying not to laugh as she caught Ron's amused expression in the corner of her gaze. Across the table, Kingsley and the Unspeakable sat quietly as they waited for Hermione to continue.

"What will happen to Gleipnir and the First Chains now? I've been informed that they will not be included in the official Ministry artifact archive."

"Ah. That is a question that I think I should answer, Miss Granger," the Unspeakable said, his voice smooth and low. All attention swung towards Trebond as he rose from his chair, brandishing his wand. With a fluid swirl, he pointed the wand-tip towards the table. Someone in the room gave an audible gasp as what appeared to be a large glass globe began to rise from the center of the table. Hermione was fairly sure it was either herself or Harry who had made the noise; neither of them would ever quite get over the thrill of magic.

The globe slid away from the table until it was fully visible. The surface was a smooth, opaque grey and she could see the reflection of the room's lights in the glass. The Unspeakable tapped his wand several times against the surface. Suddenly the glass cleared and they were all peering into a dimly lit room, from a vantage point high in the rafters. Centered in the view of the globe was a scarred wooden table and an anonymous figure standing to the side.

Trebond muttered something and the view swung closer, the movement making Hermione's stomach lurch. As the scene steadied itself, she sucked in a breath as the figure moved closer to the table, reaching for a small silk bag.

"It's my dampening bag," she whispered.

As they watched, a large white crate appeared on the tabletop, filled with an amorphous packing material. The figure carefully set the dampening bag in the center of the crate before covering it with the lid. A few wand taps and the crate was presumably sealed, and a gleaming brass plate appeared on the front. The view centered on the crate and Hermione wasn't alone in gasping as the word '_Gleipnir_' appeared, engraved in looping script across the brass plate.

"Gleipnir and the First Chains are now part of the Department of Mysteries archives," Trebond intoned, his voice echoing against the tile walls. "Unspeakables will now be handling any further research."

Hermione must have made a noise in protest as she half-rose from her chair, because both Harry and Draco laid a hand on her shoulders to restrain her. She blushed, sinking back into her seat as Unspeakable Trebond levelled a blank stare at her. Of course the Department of Mysteries would take over such an artifact; it's powers were Divine and immense, it didn't belong in the main archives gathering dust. But the crushing disappointment of not being the one to study it still weighed heavy on her heart.

"I can assure you, Miss Granger, that the chains will be studied by our top staff," Trebond reassured her, his gaze swinging back to the globe. "They will be kept safe."

She knew intrinsically that it was the best choice, that no one had the capability to research the unknown like the Department of Mysteries. But the disappointment must have shown on her face, because she felt Draco squeeze her shoulder lightly, his fingers lingering on the skin at the base of her neck. She looked up at him and was momentarily stopped by the intensity of the affection in his gaze. She felt it singing along their bond but just the sight of his face as he gazed at her made her heart flip. No matter what happened from here, everything they had been through together had been worth it for this. Her hand rose and she covered his fingers with her own, feeling her eyes go moist.

Someone in the room shifted in their seat and Hermione felt her attention being torn from Draco and centered back on the table. The view began to pull back as the anonymous figure within the globe levitated the white crate containing Gleipnir. As the figure and the box began to move down an aisle between the shelves, the view swung wildly away, rising higher and higher. Row after row of shelves began to appear, each full of identical white crates. Draco's hand was a warm weight on her shoulder as Hermione watched the figure move down the aisle until she blinked, and it was gone.


End file.
